“Ralph,” said Rotha—­she had walked in silence for some little time—­“all the sorrow of my life seems gone.  You have driven it all away.”  Her tremulous voice belied the light laugh that followed.

He looked down at her tear-dimmed eyes.  Was her great sorrow indeed gone?  Had he driven it away from her?  If so, was it not all, and more, being gathered up into his own heart instead?  Was it not so?

“You have borne it bravely, Rotha—­very bravely,” he answered.  “Do you think, now, that I could have borne it as you have done?”

There was a tremor in his tone and a tenderness of expression in his face that Rotha had never before seen there.

“Bear it as I have done?” she repeated.  “There is nothing you could not bear.”  And her radiant face was lit up in that white moonlight with a perfect sunshine of beauty.

“I don’t know, Rotha, my girl,” he answered falteringly; “I don’t know—­yet.”  The last words were spoken with his head dropped on to his breast.

Rotha stepped in front of him, and, putting her hand on his shoulder, stopped him and looked searchingly in his face.

“What is this sadness, Ralph?  Is there something you have not told me—­something behind, which, when it comes, will take the joy out of this glad news you give me?”

“I could not be so cruel as that, Rotha; do you think I could?”

A smile was playing upon his features as he smoothed her hair over her forehead and drew forward the loose hood that had fallen from it.

“And there is nothing to come after—­nothing?”

“Nothing that need mar your happiness, my girl, or disturb your love.  You love your father, do you not?”

“Better than all the world!” Rotha answered impulsively.  “Poor father!”

“Better than all the world,” echoed Ralph vacantly, and with something like a sigh.  Her impetuous words seemed to touch him deeply, and he repeated them once more, but they died away on his lips.  “Better than all the—­” Then they walked on.

They had almost reached the belt of trees that overhung the road.

“Ralph,” said Rotha, pausing, “may I—­kiss you?”

He stooped and kissed her on the forehead.  Then the weight about his heart seemed heavier than before.  By that kiss he felt that between him and the girl at his side there was a chasm that might never be bridged.  Had he loved her?  He hardly knew; he had never put it to himself so.  Did she not love him?  He could not doubt it.  And her kiss! yes, it was the kiss of love; but what love?  The frank, upturned face answered him but too well.

They were within the shadow of the trees now, and could see the lights at Shoulthwaite.  In two minutes more their journey would be done.

“Take my hand, Rotha; you might slip on the frosty road in darkness like this.”

The words were scarcely spoken, when Rotha gave a little cry and stumbled.  “In an instant Ralph’s arm was about her, and she had regained her feet.