CHAPTER XLIII. LOVE KNOWN AT LAST.
Early next morning Willy Ray arrived at Shoulthwaite, splashed from head to foot, worn and torn. He had ridden hard from Carlisle, but not so fast but that two unwelcome visitors were less than half an hour's ride behind him.
“Home again,” he said, in a dejected tone, throwing down his whip as he entered the kitchen, “yet home no longer.”
Rotha struggled to speak. “Ralph, where is he? Is he on the way?” These questions were on her lips, but a great gulp was in her throat, and not a word would come.
“Ralph's a dead man,” said Willy with affected deliberation, pushing off his long boots.
Rotha fell back apace. Willy glanced up at her.
“As good as dead,” he added, perceiving that she had taken his words too literally. “Ah, well, it's over now, it's over; and if you had a hand in it, girl, may God forgive you!”
Willy said this with the air of a man who reconciles himself to an injury, and is persuading his conscience that he pardons it. “Could you not give me something to eat?” he asked, after a pause.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” said Rotha, in a voice as husky as the raven's.
Willie glanced at her again. He felt a passing pang of remorse.
“I had forgotten, Rotha; your father, he is in the same case with Ralph.”
Then he told her all; told her in a simple way, such as he believed would appeal to what he thought her simple nature; told her of the two trials and final conviction, and counselled her to bear her trouble with as stout a heart as might be.
“It will be ended in a week,” he said, in closing his narrative; “and then, Heaven knows what next.” Rotha stood speechless by the chair of the unconscious invalid, with a face more pale than ashes, and fingers clinched in front of her.
“It comes as a shock to you, Rotha, for you seemed somehow to love your poor father.”
Still the girl was silent. Then Willy's sympathies, which had for two minutes been as unselfish as short-sighted, began to revolve afresh about his own sorrows.
“I can scarce blame you for what you did,” he said; “no, I can scarce blame you, when I think of it. He was not your brother, as he was mine. You could know nothing of a brother's love; no, you could know nothing of that.”
“What is the love of a brother?” said Rotha.
Willy started at the unfamiliar voice.
“What would be the love of a world of brothers to such a love as mine?”
Then stepping with great glassy eyes to where Willy sat, the girl clutched him nervously and said, “I loved him.”
Willy looked up with wonder in his face.
“Yes, I! You talk your love; it is but a drop to the ocean I bear him. It is but a grain to the desert of love in my heart that shall never, never blossom.”
“Rotha!” cried Willy, in amazement.
“Your love! Why look you, under the wing of death—now that I may never hope to win him—I tell you that I love Ralph.”
“Rotha!” repeated Willy, rising to his feet.
“Yes, and shall love him when the grass is over him, or me, or both!”
“Love him?”
“To the last drop of my blood, to the last hour of my life, until Death's cold hand lies chill on this heart, until we stand together where God is, and all is love for ever and ever, I tell you I love him, and shall love him, as God Himself is my witness.”
The girl glowed with passion. Her face quivered with emotion, and her upturned eyes were not more full of inspiration than of tears.
Willy sank back into his seat with a feeling akin to awe.
“Let it be so, Rotha,” he said a moment later; “but Ralph is doomed. Your love is barren; it comes too late. Remember what you once said, that death comes to all.” “But there is something higher than death and stronger,” cried Rotha, “or heaven itself is a lie and God a mockery. No, they shall not die, for they are innocent.”
“Innocence is a poor shield from death. It was either father or Ralph,” replied Willy, “and for myself I care not which.”
Then at a calmer moment he repeated to her afresh the evidence of the young woman Rushton, whom she and her father had housed at Fornside.
“You are sure she said 'fifty yards to the north of the bridge'?” interrupted Rotha.
“Sure,” said Willy; “Ralph raised a question on the point, but they flung it aside with contempt.”
“Robbie Anderson,” thought Rotha. “What does Robbie know of this that he was forever saying the same in his delirium? Something he must know. I shall run over to him at once.”
But just then the two officers of the sheriff's court arrived again at Shoulthwaite, and signified by various forms of freedom and familiarity that it was a part of their purpose to settle there until such time as judgment should have taken its course, and left them the duty of appropriating the estate of a felon in the name of the crown.
“Come, young mistress, lead us up to our room, and mind you see smartly to that breakfast. Alack-a-day; we're as hungry as hawks.”
“You come to do hawks' business, sir,” said Rotha, “in spoiling another's nest.”
“Ha! ha! ha! happy conceit, forsooth! But there's no need to glare at us like that, my sharp-witted wench. Come, lead on, but go slowly, there. This leg of mine has never mended, bating the scar, since yonder unlucky big brother of yours tumbled me on the mountains.”
“He's not my brother.”
“Sweetheart, then, ey? Why, these passages are as dark as the grave.”
“I wish they were as silent, and as deep too, for those who enter them.”
“Ay, what, Jonathan? Grave, silent, deep—but then you would be buried with us, my pretty lassie.”
“And what of that? Here's your room, sirs. Peradventure it will serve until you take every room.” “Remember the breakfast,” cried the little man, after Rotha's retreating figure. “We're as hungry as—as—”
“Hold your tongue, and come in, David. Brush the mud from your pantaloons, and leave the girl to herself.”
“The brazen young noddle,” muttered David.
It was less than an hour later when Rotha, having got through her immediate duties, was hastening with all speed to Mattha Brander's cottage. In her hand, tightly grasped beneath her cloak, was a bunch of keys, and on her lips were the words of the woman's evidence and of Robbie's delirium. “It was fifty yards to the north of the bridge.”
This was her sole clew. What could she make of it?