poisonous serpent crept up the memory of
Willy's bitter reproach. "It was cruel, very cruel."

In the agony of her heart the girl's soul turned one way only, and
that was towards him whose absence had occasioned this latest trouble.
"Ralph! Ralph!" she cried, and the tears that had left her eyes came
again in her voice.

But perhaps, after all, Willy was right. To be turned into the road
would not mean that this poor sufferer should die of the cold of the
hard winter. There were tender hearts round about, and shelter would
be found for her. Yet, no! it was Ralph's concernment, and what right
had they to take charity for his mother without his knowledge? Ralph
ought to be told, if they could tell him. Yes, he _must_ be told.

Having come to a settled resolution on this point, Rotha rose up from
the bed, and, brushing her tangled hair from her forehead, walked back
into the kitchen. Standing where she had stood while the constables
were there, she enacted every incident and heard every syllable
afresh.

There could be no longer any doubt that Ralph should know what had
already happened and what further was threatened. Yet who was to tell
him, and how was he to be told? It was useless to approach Willy in
his present determination rather to suffer eviction than to do Ralph
the injury of leading, or seeming to lead, to his apprehension.

"That was a noble purpose, but it was wrong," thought Rotha, and it
never occurred to her to make terms with a mistake. "It was a noble
purpose," she thought again; and when the memory of her own personal
grief crept up once more, she suppressed it with the reflection,
"Willy was sore tried, poor lad."

Who was to tell Ralph, and how was he to be told? Who knew where he
had gone, or, knowing this, could go in search of him? Would that she
herself had been born a man; then she would have travelled the kingdom
over, but she would have found him. She was only a woman, however, and
her duty lay here--here in the little circle with Ralph's mother, and
in his house and his brother's. Who could go in search of Ralph?

At this moment of doubt, Sim walked into the courtyard of the
homestead. He had not been seen since the day of the parson's visit,
but, without giving sign of any consciousness that he had been away,
he now took up a spade and began to remove a drift of sleet that had
fallen during the previous night. Rotha's eyes brightened, and she
hastened to the door and hailed him.

"