for one
glimpse of what was going on in that man's heart. If she had found
corruption there, sin and crime, she would have thanked God for it as
for manna from above. Rotha clutched the keys beneath her cloak and
subdued her anger.

"You scarce seem yourself to-day, Mr. Garth," she said.

"All the better," he replied, with a mocking laugh. "I've heard that
they say my own sel' is a bad sel'."

The words were hardly off his lips when he turned again sharply and
faced Rotha with an inquiring look. He had reminded himself of a
common piece of his mother's counsel; but in the first flash of
recollection it had almost appeared to him that the words had been
Rotha's, not his.

The girl's face was as tender as a Madonna's.

"Maybe I _am_ a little bit out of sorts to-day; maybe so. I've felt
daizt this last week end; I have, somehow."

Rotha left him a minute afterwards. Continuing her journey, she drew
the bunch of keys from under her cloak and examined them.

They were the same that she had found attached to Wilson's trunk on
the night of her own and Mrs. Garth's visit to the deserted cottage at
Fornside. There were perhaps twenty keys in all, but two only bore any
signs of recent or frequent use. One of these was marked with a cross
scratched roughly on the flat of the ring. The other had a piece of
white tape wrapped about the shaft. The rest of the keys were worn red
with thick encrustation of rust. And now, by the power of love, this
girl with the face of an angel in its sweetness and simplicity--this
girl, usually as tremulous as a linnet--was about to do what a callous
man might shrink from.

She followed the pack-horse road beyond the lonnin that turned up to
Shoulthwaite, and stopped at the gate of the cottage that stood by the
smithy near the bridge. Without wavering for an instant, without the
quivering of a single muscle, she opened the gate and walked up to the
door.

"Mrs. Garth," she called.

A young girl came out. She was a neighbor's daughter.

"Why, she's away, Rotha, Mistress Garth is," said the little lassie.

"Away, Bessy?" said Rotha, entering the house and seating herself. "Do
you know where she's gone?"

"Nay, that I don't; but she told mother she'd be away three or four
days."

"So you're minding house for her," said Rotha vacantly, her eyes
meantime busily traversing the kitchen; they came back to the little
housekeeper's face in a twinkling.

"Deary me, what a pretty ribbon that