The storm was now all but over.  The moon shone clear, and the clouds that scudded across its face were few.  Lauvellen, to the east, was visible to the summit; and Raven Craig, to the west, loomed black before the moon.  A cutting wind still blew, and a frost had set in sharp and keen.  Already the sleet that had fallen was frozen in sheets along the road, which was thereby made almost impassable even to the sure footsteps of the mountaineer.  The trees no longer sighed and moaned with the wind; on the stiffening firs lay beads of frozen snow, and the wind as it passed through them soughed.  The ghylls were fuller and louder, and seemed to come from every hill; the gullocks overflowed, but silence was stealing over the streams, and the deeper rivers seemed scarcely to flow.

Ralph and Rotha walked side by side to Shoulthwaite Moss.  It was useless for the girl to return to Fornside, Ralph had said.  Her father would not be there, and the desolate house was no place for her on a night like this.  She must spend the night under his mother’s charge.

They had exchanged but few words on setting out.  The tragedy of her father’s life was settling on the girl’s heart with a nameless misery.  It is the first instinct of the child’s nature to look up to the parent as its refuge, its tower of strength.  That bulwark may be shattered before the world, and yet to the child’s intuitive feeling it may remain the same.  Proudly, steadfastly the child heart continues to look up to the wreck that is no wreck in the eyes of its love.  Ah! how well it is if the undeceiving never comes!  But when all that seemed strong, when all that seemed true, becomes to the unveiled vision weak and false, what word is there that can represent the sadness of the revealment?

“Do you think, Ralph, that I could bear a terrible answer if I were to ask you a terrible question?”

Rotha broke the silence between them with these words.  Ralph replied promptly,—­

“Yes, I do.  What would you ask?”

The girl appeared powerless to proceed.  She tried to speak and stopped, withdrawing her words and framing them afresh, as though fearful of the bluntness of her own inquiry.  Her companion perceived her distress, and coming to her relief with a cheerier tone, he said,—­

“Don’t fear to ask, Rotha.  I think I can guess your question.  You want to know if—­”

“Ralph,” the girl broke in hurriedly—­she could better bear to say the word herself than to hear him say it—­“Ralph, he is my father, and that has been enough.  I could not love him the less whatever might happen.  I have never asked him—­anything.  He is my father, and though he be—­whatever he may be—­he is my father still, you know.  But, Ralph, tell me—­you say I can bear it—­and I can—­I feel I can now—­tell me, Ralph, was it poor father after all?”

Rotha had stopped and covered up her face in her hands.  Ralph stopped too.  His voice was deep and thick as he answered slowly,—­