re, and the desolate house was no place for her on a
night like this. She must spend the night under his mother's charge.

They had exchanged but few words on setting out. The tragedy of her
father's life was settling on the girl's heart with a nameless misery.
It is the first instinct of the child's nature to look up to the
parent as its refuge, its tower of strength. That bulwark may be
shattered before the world, and yet to the child's intuitive feeling
it may remain the same. Proudly, steadfastly the child heart continues
to look up to the wreck that is no wreck in the eyes of its love. Ah!
how well it is if the undeceiving never comes! But when all that
seemed strong, when all that seemed true, becomes to the unveiled
vision weak and false, what word is there that can represent the
sadness of the revealment?

"Do you think, Ralph, that I could bear a terrible answer if I were to
ask you a terrible question?"

Rotha broke the silence between them with these words. Ralph replied
promptly,--

"Yes, I do. What would you ask?"

The girl appeared powerless to proceed. She tried to speak and
stopped, withdrawing her words and framing them afresh, as though
fearful of the bluntness of her own inquiry. Her companion perceived
her distress, and coming to her relief with a cheerier tone, he
said,--

"Don't fear to ask, Rotha. I think I can guess your question. You want
to know if--"

"Ralph," the girl broke in hurriedly--she could better bear to say the
word herself than to hear him say it--"Ralph, he is my father, and
that has been enough. I could not love him the less whatever might
happen. I have never asked him--anything. He is my father, and though
he be--whatever he may be--he is my father _still_, you know. But,
Ralph, tell me--you say I can bear it--and I can--I feel I can
now--tell me, Ralph, _was_ it poor father after all?"

Rotha had stopped and covered up her face in her hands. Ralph stopped
too. His voice was deep and thick as he answered slowly,--

"No, Rotha, it was not."

"_Not_ father?" cried the girl; "you know it was not?"

"I _know_ it was not."

The voice again was not the voice of one who brings glad tidings, but
the words were themselves full of gladness for the ear on which they
fell, and Rotha seemed almost overcome by her joy. She clutched
Ralph's arm with both hands.

"Heaven be praised!" she said; "now I can brave anything--poor, poor
father!"

After this the girl almost leapt o