“There can be no rest for me, Rotha, till I tell you something that lies like iron at my heart.”

“Whisht thee, lad; whisht thee and sleep.  Thou’rt safe to be well to-morrow,” said Mrs. Garth in a peevish whimper.

“Mother, mother,” cried Garth aloud in a piteous tone of appeal and remonstrance, “when, when will you see me as I am?”

“Tush, lad! thou’rt mending fast.  Thou’rt safe to be at thy fire to-morrow.”

“Ey, mother,” replied the blacksmith, lifting himself feebly and glaring at her now with a fierce light in his eyes,—­“eh, mother, but it will be the everlasting fire if I’m to die with this black sin heavy on my soul.”

In spite of her self-deception, the woman’s mind had long been busy with its own secret agony, and at these words from her son the rigid wrinkles of her face relaxed, and she turned her head once more aside.

Rotha felt that the moment had at length arrived.  She must speak now or never.  The one hope for two innocent men who were to die as soon as the world woke again to daylight lay in this moment.

“Mr. Garth,” she began falteringly, “if a sin lies heavy on your soul, it is better to tell God of it and cast yourself on the mercy of our Heavenly Father.”

Gathering strength, the girl continued:  “And if it is a dark secret that touches others than yourself—­if others may suffer, or are suffering, from it even now—­if this is so, I pray of you, as you hope for that Divine mercy, confess it now, confess it before it is too late—­fling it forth from your stifled heart—­do not bury its dead body there, and leave it to be revealed only at that judgment when every human deed, be it never so secret, shall be stripped naked before the Lord, that retribution may be measured out for ever and ever.”

Rotha had risen to her feet, and was leaning over the bed with one hand in an attitude of acutest pain, convulsively clutching the hand of the blacksmith.

“Oh, I implore you,” she continued, “speak out what is in your heart for your own sake, as well as the sake of others.  Do not lose these precious moments.  Be true! be true at last! at last!  Then let it be with you as God shall order.  Do not carry this sin to the eternal judgment.  Blessed, a thousand times blessed, will be the outpouring of a contrite heart.  God will hear it.”

Garth looked into the girl’s inspired face.

“I don’t see my way clearly,” he said.  “I’m same as a man that gropes nigh midway through yon passage underground at Legberthwaite.  The light behind me grows dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, and not yet comes the gleam of the light in front.  I’m not at the darkest; no, I’m not.”

“A guest is knocking at your heart, Mr. Garth.  Will you open to him?” Then, in another tone, she added:  “To-morrow at daybreak two men will die in Carlisle—­my father and Ralph Ray—­and they are innocent!”

“Ey, it’s true,” said the blacksmith, breaking down at length.