"There may be more with him," said Elizabeth; but she opened the door, with jealous care, showing half of herself only, to parley. Was it Roger, that dark figure against the light outside? He came pushing in with a kind of rude imperativeness. "Do you try to keep me out?" he said. "No, we are all in the same ship now. Let me in. I have nowhere else to go."
"Is there more ill news to hear?" said Elizabeth.
"More ill news? No, not for you. Listen; but first light a lamp or something, that I may see who I'm talking to. That's better. Yesterday," said Roger, with a curious laugh, "I could speak freely what I wanted to say without thinking of the dark or the light."
"What is it, tell me what it is?—I must go to my lad that is alone."
"Alone! is he worse than others?" said Roger, fiercely; and then he added, laughing again, "they say it was I—I—that did it! I have fled from my father's house not to be taken up for murder. Oh, God!" he cried, with a tone of agony. They all echoed it with one impulse. "You?" they said, and Lily broke out wildly crying, half hysterical with the misery which seemed to have its crown of anguish now.
"But no, no, it canna be! you have proofs to the contrary," cried Elizabeth, upon whom this seemed an appeal against herself.
"They can prove everything," he said, with the calm of one who knew the worst. "I had an appointment with him there for that morning. I was seen going away, looking like a man that had killed another. I had quarrelled with him (oh, poor Dick, poor Dick! I knew him all my life!) the day before. There is no one but believes it. We are all in the same box," said Roger, sitting down, miserable but defiant; "there was nowhere I could come but to you."
"Oh, sir," said Elizabeth, "no harm shall happen to you, not a hair shall fall from your head—but spare him, spare him now."
"Spare him! am I harming him? I am giving my life for his," said Roger, with a groan. "I wish he had let me break my neck from the old tower; it would have been soon over. Spare him! I'm on my way now I know not where. Whatever happens to him I am lost, Mrs Murray; my life, my good name, everything. Look here, there is but one thing you can do for me; give me Lily and let me go."
Lily had heard all from her stool by the fire, where she had sat in a dull suspension of feeling, listening vaguely, too much crushed to care for anything. At these words she rose up to her feet, and stood still, rigid, waiting for what was next to be said.