now.

Oh! that awful night, that void night, that night of the wind's wail
and the dismal moan of the wandering river, and the frequent cry of a
poor, miserable, desolate, despairing, naked soul! Had its black wings
settled forever over all the earth?

No. The dawn came at last. Its faint streak of light crept lazily in
at the curtainless window.

Then Garth raised himself in his bed.

"Give me paper--paper and a pen--quick, quick!" he cried.

"What would you write, Joe?" said Rotha.

"I want to write to him--to Ralph--Ralph Ray," he said, in a voice
quite unlike his own.

Rotha ran to the chest in the kitchen and opened it. In a side shelf
pens were there and paper too. She came back, and put them before the
sick man.

But he was unconscious of what she had done.

She looked into his face. His eyes seemed not to see.

"The paper and pen!" he cried again, yet more eagerly.

She put the quill into his hand and spread the paper before him.

"What writing is this," he cried, pointing to the white sheet; "this
writing in red?"

"Where?"

"Here--everywhere."

The pen dropped from his nerveless fingers.

"To think they will take a dying man!" he said. "You would scarce
think they would have the heart, these people. You would scarce think
it, would you?" he said, lifting his poor glassy eyes to Rotha's face.

"Perhaps they don't know," she answered soothingly, and tried to
replace him on his pillow.

"That's true," he muttered; "perhaps they don't know how ill I am."

At that instant he caught sight of his mother's ill-shapen figure
cowering over the fire. Clutching Rotha's arm with one hand, he
pointed at his mother with the other, and said, with an access of
strength,--

"I've found her out; I've found her out."

Then he laughed till it seemed to Rotha that the blood stood still in
her heart.

When the full flood of daylight streamed into the little room, Garth
had sunk into a deep sleep.

CHAPTER XLVIII. "OUT, OUT, BRIEF CANDLE."

As the clock struck eight Rotha drew her shawls about her shoulders
and hurried up the road.

At the turning of the lonnin to Shoulthwaite she met Willy Ray. "I was
coming to meet you," he said, approaching.

"Come no closer," said Rotha, thrusting out the palm of one hand; "you
know where I've been--there, that is near enough."

"Nonsense, Rotha!" said Willy, stepping up to her and putting a hand
on her arm. There was confidence in the touch.

"To-m