say you have pardoned me."

Rotha had dropped her eyes, and the tears were now blinding them.

"I was a monster to think of it, Rotha; look in my face, my girl, and
say you forgive me."

"I could have followed you over the world, Willy, and looked for no
better fortune. I could have trusted to you, and loved you, though we
had no covering but the skies above us."

"Don't kill me with remorse, Rotha; don't heap coals of fire on my
head. Look up and smile but once, my darling."

Rotha lifted her tear-dimmed eyes to the eyes of her lover, and Willy
stooped to kiss her trembling lips. At that instant an impulse took
hold of him which he was unable to resist, and words that he struggled
to suppress forced their own utterance.

"Great God!" he cried, and drew back his head with a quick recoil,
"how like your father you are!"

CHAPTER XXIV. TREASON OR MURDER.

The night was dark that followed. It had been a true Cumbrian day in
winter. The leaden sky that hung low and dense had been relieved only
by the white rolling mists that capped the fells and swept at
intervals down their brant and rugged sides. The air had not cleared
as the darkness came on. There was no moon. The stars could not
struggle through the vapor that lay beneath them. There was no wind.
It was a cold and silent night.

Rotha stood at the end of the lonnin, where the lane to Shoulthwaite
joined the pack-horse road. She was wrapped in a long woollen cloak
having a hood that fell deep over her face. Her father had parted from
her half an hour ago, and though the darkness had in a moment hidden
him from her sight, she had continued to stand on the spot at which he
had left her.

She was slight of figure and stronger of will than physique, but she
did not feel the cold. She was revolving the step she had taken, and
thinking how great an issue hung on the event. Sometimes she
mistrusted her judgment, and felt an impulse to run after her father
and bring him back. Then a more potent influence would prompt her to
start away and overtake him, yet only in order to bear his message the
quicker for her fleeter footsteps.

But no; Fate was in it: a power above herself seemed to dominate her
will. She must yield and obey. The thing was done.

The girl was turning about towards the house, when she heard footsteps
approaching her from the direction which her father had taken. She
could not help but pause, hardly knowing why, when the gaunt figure of