gaze from Rotha's face, "what does she mean?"

"Haud thy tongue, Joey."

"What does she mean, mother?"

"Whisht! Never heed folks that meddle afore they're axt."

Mrs. Garth spoke peevishly, rose from her seat, and walked between
Rotha and the bed.

Garth's wide eyes were still riveted on the girl's face.

"Never mind that she's not asked," he said; "but what does she mean,
mother? What lie is it that she comes to tell us!"

"No lie, Mr. Garth," said Rotha, with tearful eyes. "Ralph and father
are condemned to die, and they are innocent."

"Tush! get away wi' thee!" mumbled Mrs. Garth, brushing the girl aside
with her elbow. The blacksmith glared at her, and seemed to gasp for
breath.

"It _is_ a lie; mother, tell her it _is_ a lie."

"God knows it is not," cried Rotha passionately.

"Say I believed it," said Garth, rising convulsively on one elbow,
with a ghastly stare; "say I believed that the idiots had condemned
them to death for a crime they never committed--never; say I believed
it--but it's a lie, that's what it is. Girl, girl, how can you come
with a lie on your lips to a poor dying man? Cruel! cruel! Have you no
pity, none, for a wretched dying man?"

The tears rolled down Rotha's cheeks. Mrs. Garth returned to her
stool, and rocked herself and moaned.

The blacksmith glared from one to the other, the sweat standing in
heavy beads on his forehead.

Then an awful scream burst from his lips. His face was horribly
distorted.

"It is true," he cried, and fell back and rolled on the bed.

All that night the fiery hand lay on the blacksmith's brain, and he
tossed in a wild delirium.

The wind's wail ran round the house, and the voice of that brother
wanderer, the river beneath the bridge crept over the silence when the
sufferer lay quiet and the wind was still.

No candle was now lighted, but the fire on the hearth burnt bright.
Mrs. Garth sat before it, hardly once glancing up.

Again and again her son cried to her with the yearning cry of a little
child. At such times the old woman would shrink within herself, and
moan and cower over the fire, and smoke a little black pipe.

Hour after hour the blacksmith rolled in his bed in a madness too
terrible to record. The memory of his blasphemies seemed to come back
upon him in his raving, and add fresh agony to his despair.

A naked soul stood face to face with the last reality, battling
meantime, with an unseen foe. There was to be no jugglery