Then to think that he was forever to be haunted by this idle dream; to think that the shattered idol which he could no longer worship was to live with him to the end, to get up and lie down with him, and stand forever beside him!

Perhaps, after all, he had been too hard on the girl.  Willy told himself it had been wrong to expect so much of her.  She was—­he must look the stern fact in the face—­she was a country girl, and no more.  Then was she not also the daughter of Simeon Stagg?

Yes, the sunshine had been over her when he looked at her before, and it had bathed her in a beauty that was not her own.  That had not been her fault, poor girl.  He had been too hard on her.  He would go and make amends.

As Willy entered the house, Sim was coming out of it.  They passed without a word.

“Forgive me, Rotha,” said Willy, walking up to her and taking her hand.  “I spoke in haste and too harshly.”

Rotha let her hand lie in his, but made no reply.  After his apology, Willy would have extenuated his fault.

“You see, Rotha, you don’t know my brother as well as I do, and hence you could not foresee what would have happened if we had done what you proposed.”

Still there was no response.  Willy’s words came more slowly as he continued:  “And it was wrong to suppose that whether Ralph were given up or not they would leave us in this place, but it was natural that you should think it a good thing to save this shelter.”

“I was thinking of your mother, Willy,” said Rotha, with her eyes on the ground.

“My mother—­true.”  Willy had not thought of this before; that Rotha’s mind had been running on the possible dangers to his mother of the threatened eviction had never occurred to him until now.  He had been wrong—­entirely so.  His impulse was to take the girl in his arms and confess the injustice of his reflections; but he shrank from this at the instant, and then his mind wriggled with apologies for his error.

“To spare mother the peril of being turned into the roads—­that would have been something; yes, much.  Ralph himself must have chosen to do that.  But once in the clutches of those bloodhounds, and it might have meant banishment for years, for life perhaps—­aye, perhaps even death itself.”

“And even so,” said Rotha, stepping back a pace and throwing up her head, while her hands were clinched convulsively,—­“and even so,” she repeated.  “Death comes to all; it will come to him among the rest, and how could he die better?  If he were a thousand times my brother, I could give him up to such a death.”

“Rotha, my darling,” cried Willy, throwing his arms about her, “I am ashamed.  Forgive me if I said you were thinking of yourself.  Look up, my darling; give me but one look, and say you have pardoned me.”

Rotha had dropped her eyes, and the tears were now blinding them.

“I was a monster to think of it, Rotha; look in my face, my girl, and say you forgive me.”