hen love is dead?"

"Ay, my little lass, it may be a great wrong to love and to weep.
There is a shadow around you, Aspatria; if people speak of you they
drop their voices and shake their heads; they wonder, and they think
evil. Your good name is being smiled and shaken away, and I cannot
find any one, man or woman, to thrash for it."

She stood listening to him with wide-open eyes, and lips dropping a
little apart, every particle of colour fled from them.

"It is for this reason Fenwick is to marry you."

"You forced him; I know you forced him." She seemed to drag the words
from her mouth; they almost shivered; they broke in two as they fell
halting on the ear.

"Well, I must say he did not need forcing, when he heard your good
name was in danger. He said, manly enough, that he would make it good
with his own name. I do not much think I could have either frightened
or flogged him into marrying you."

"Oh, Will! I cannot marry him in this way! Let people say wicked
things of me, if they will."

"Nay, I will not! I cannot help them thinking evil; but they shall not
look it, and they shall not say it."

"Perhaps they do not even think it, Will. How can you tell?"

"Well enough, Aspatria. How many women come to Ambar-Side now? If you
gave a dance next week, you could not get a girl in Allerdale to
accept your invitation."

"Will!"

"It is the truth. You must stop all this by marrying Ulfar Fenwick. He
saw it was only just and right: I will say that much for him."

"Let me alone until morning. I will do what you say.--Oh, mother!
mother I want mother now!"

"My poor little lass! I am only brother Will; but I am sorry for thee,
I am that!"

She tottered to the bedside, and he lifted her gently, and laid her on
it; and then, as softly as if he was afraid of waking her, he went out
of the room. Outside the door he found Brune. He had taken off his
shoes, and was in his stocking-feet. Will grasped him by the shoulder
and led him to his own chamber.

"What were you watching me for? What were you listening to me for? I
have a mind to hit you, Brune."

"You had better not hit me, Will. I was not bothering myself about
you. I was watching Aspatria. I was listening, because I knew the
madman in you had got loose, and I was feared for my sister. I was not
going to let you say or do things you would be sorry to death for when
you came to yourself. And so you are going to let that villain marry
Aspatria? You are n