r back to that night at
Dunbar, when, at the prompting of what he mistook for mercy, he had
saved the life of the enemy that was to wreck his own life and the
lives of all that were near and dear to him. To his tortured soul
guilt seemed everywhere about him, whether his own guilt or the guilt
of others, was still the same; and now God had given this dread
disaster for a sign that vengeance was His, that retribution had come
and would come.

Was it the dream of an overpowered imagination--the nightmare of a
distempered fancy? Yet it would not be shaken off. It had bathed the
whole world in another light--a lurid light.

Ralph walked fast over the fells, snatching at sprigs of heather,
plucking the slim boughs from the bushes, pausing sometimes to look
long at a stone, or a river, or a path that last night appeared to be
as familiar to him as the palm of his hand, and had suddenly become
strange and a mystery. The shadow of a supernatural presence hung over
all.

Throughout that day he walked about the fells, looking for the
riderless horse, and calling to it, but neither expecting to see nor
to hear it. He saw once and again the people of Wythburn abroad on the
errand that kept him abroad, but they never came within hail, and a
stifling sense of shame kept him apart, none the less that he knew not
wherefore such shame should fall on him, all the same that they knew
not that it had fallen.

The day would come when all men would see that God's hand was on him.

Yes, Ralph; but when that day does indeed come, then all men shall
also see that whom God's hand rests on has God at his right hand.

When the darkness was closing in upon a second night, Ralph was
descending High Seat towards Shoulthwaite Moss. Behind him lagged the
jaded dog, walking a few paces with drooping head and tail; then lying
for a minute, and rising to walk languidly again.

CHAPTER XV. RALPH'S SACRIFICE.

When he reached the old house, Ralph was prepared for the results of
any further disaster, for disaster had few further results for which
it was needful to prepare. A light burned in the kitchen, and another
in that room above it where lately his father had lain. When Ralph
entered, Willy Ray was seated before the fire, his hand in the hand of
Rotha, who sat by his side. On every feature of his pallid face were
traces of suffering.

"What of mother?" said Ralph huskily, his eyes traversing the kitchen.

Willy rose and put his hand