The blacksmith
was awake. As he lifted his eyes to Rotha's face, the girl saw that
they wore the same watchful and troubled expression as before.

"Shall I read to you, Mr. Garth?" she asked, taking down from a shelf
near the rafters a big leather-bound book. It was a Bible,
dust-covered and with rusty clasps, which had lain untouched for
years.

"Rotha," said Garth, "read to me where it tells of sins that are as
scarlet being washed whiter nor wool."

The girl found the place. She read aloud in the rich, soft voice that
was like the sigh of the wind through the long grass. The words might
have brought solace to another man. The girl's voice might have rested
on the ear as a cool hand rests on a throbbing brow. But neither words
nor voice brought peace to Garth. His soul seemed to heave like a sea
lashed by a storm.

At length he reached out a feeble hand and touched the hand of the
girl.

"I have a sin that is red as scarlet," he said. But before he could
say more, his mother had roused herself and turned to him with what
Rotha perceived to be a look of warning.

It was plainly evident that but for Mrs. Garth, the blacksmith would
make that confession which she wished above all else to hear.

Then Rotha read again. She read of the prodigal son, and of Him who
would not condemn the woman that was a sinner. It was a solemn and
terrible moment. The fathomless depths of the girl's voice, breaking
once and again to a low wail, then rising to a piercing cry, went with
the words themselves like an arrow to the heart of the dying man.
Still no peace came to him. Chill was the inmost chamber of his soul;
no fire was kindled there. His face was veiled in a troubled
seriousness, when, at a pause in the reading, he said,--

"There can be no rest for me, Rotha, till I tell you something that
lies like iron at my heart."

"Whisht thee, lad; whisht thee and sleep. Thou'rt safe to be well
to-morrow," said Mrs. Garth in a peevish whimper.

"Mother, mother," cried Garth aloud in a piteous tone of appeal and
remonstrance, "when, when will you see me as I am?"

"Tush, lad! thou'rt mending fast. Thou'rt safe to be at thy fire
to-morrow."

"Ey, mother," replied the blacksmith, lifting himself feebly and
glaring at her now with a fierce light in his eyes,--"eh, mother, but
it will be the everlasting fire if I'm to die with this black sin
heavy on my soul."

In spite of her self-deception, the woman's mind had long been bus