tors were less than half an hour's
ride behind him.

"Home again," he said, in a dejected tone, throwing down his whip as
he entered the kitchen, "yet _home_ no longer."

Rotha struggled to speak. "Ralph, where is he? Is he on the way?"
These questions were on her lips, but a great gulp was in her throat,
and not a word would come.

"Ralph's a dead man," said Willy with affected deliberation, pushing
off his long boots.

Rotha fell back apace. Willy glanced up at her.

"As good as dead," he added, perceiving that she had taken his words
too literally. "Ah, well, it's over now, it's over; and if you had a
hand in it, girl, may God forgive you!"

Willy said this with the air of a man who reconciles himself to an
injury, and is persuading his conscience that he pardons it. "Could
you not give me something to eat?" he asked, after a pause.

"Is that all you have to say to me?" said Rotha, in a voice as husky
as the raven's.

Willie glanced at her again. He felt a passing pang of remorse.

"I had forgotten, Rotha; your father, he is in the same case with
Ralph."

Then he told her all; told her in a simple way, such as he believed
would appeal to what he thought her simple nature; told her of the two
trials and final conviction, and counselled her to bear her trouble
with as stout a heart as might be.

"It will be ended in a week," he said, in closing his narrative; "and
then, Heaven knows what next." Rotha stood speechless by the chair of
the unconscious invalid, with a face more pale than ashes, and fingers
clinched in front of her.

"It comes as a shock to you, Rotha, for you seemed somehow to love
your poor father."

Still the girl was silent. Then Willy's sympathies, which had for two
minutes been as unselfish as short-sighted, began to revolve afresh
about his own sorrows.

"I can scarce blame you for what you did," he said; "no, I can scarce
blame you, when I think of it. He was not your brother, as he was
mine. You could know nothing of a brother's love; no, you could know
nothing of that."

"What _is_ the love of a brother?" said Rotha.

Willy started at the unfamiliar voice.

"What would be the love of a world of brothers to such a love as
_mine?_"

Then stepping with great glassy eyes to where Willy sat, the girl
clutched him nervously and said, "I loved him."

Willy looked up with wonder in his face.

"Yes, I! You talk _your_ love; it is but a drop to the ocean I bear
him. It is but a