How Rotha got back into the house that night she never knew.  She could not remember to have heard the rattle of the springless cart as it was being driven off.  All was for the moment a blank waste.

When she recovered consciousness she was sitting by the side of Mrs. Ray, with her arms about the neck of the invalid and her head on the unconscious breast.  The soulless eyes looked with a meaningless stare at the girl’s troubled face.

The agony of suspense was over, and the worst had happened.  What now remained to her to say to Willy?  He knew nothing of what she had done.  Sim’s absence had been too familiar an occurrence to excite suspicion, and Robbie Anderson had not been missed.  What should she say?

This was the night of Thursday.  During the long hours of the weary days since Sunday, Rotha had conjured up again and again a scene overflowing with delight, in which she should tell Willy everything.  This was to be when her father or Robbie or both returned, and the crown of her success was upon her.  But what now was the word to say?

The noise of wheels approaching startled the girl out of her troubled dream.  Willy was coming home.  In another minute he was in the house.

“Rotha, Rotha,” he cried excitedly, “I’ve great news, great news.”

“What news?” asked Rotha, not daring to look up.

“Great news,” repeated Willy.

Lifting her eyes furtively to his face, Rotha saw that, like his voice, it was brimming over with delight.

“The bloodhounds are gone,” he said, and, throwing off his cloak and leggings, he embraced the girl and kissed her and laughed the laugh of a happy man.  Then he hurried out to see to his horse.

What was Rotha to do?  What was she to say?  This mistake of Willy’s made her position not less than terrible.  How was she to tell him that his joyousness was misplaced?  If he had come to her with a sad face she might then have told him all—­yes, all the cruel truth!  If he had come to her with reproaches on his tongue, how easily she might have unburdened her heavy heart!  But this laughter and these kisses worked like madness in her brain.

The minutes flew like thought, and Willy was back in the house.

“I thought they dare not do it.  You’ll remember I told them so.  Ah! ah! they find I was in the right.”

Willy was too much excited with his own reading of this latest incident to sit in one seat for two minutes together.  He walked up and down the room, laughing sometimes, and sometimes pausing to pat his mother’s head.

It was fortunate for Rotha that she had to busy herself with the preparations for Willy’s supper, and that this duty rendered less urgent the necessity for immediate response to his remarks.  Willy, on his part, was in no mood at present to indulge in niceties of observation, and Rotha’s perturbation passed for some time unnoticed.

“Ralph will be back with us soon, let us hope,” he said.  “There’s no doubt but we do miss him, do we not?”