"No," said Dick. "Mother, you could not be so cruel; let him bear his just burden that did it. One should not perish for another. Mother, you would not wish a sacrifice like that?"
"Oh, Dick!" she moaned, wringing her hands, "no harm shall happen to him, not a hair shall fall from his head."
"But that's not all," said Dick, "that's but a little—honour is more than life. Would you let him give up everything because Abel caught him when he was falling? I would do that for any tramp. Mother, you will never be so cruel."
"Look here," said Roger, "I've taken all the money I could lay my hands on; that ought to keep us from starving. Tell Lily to come with me. I've nothing else left in the world. Give me Lily and I will go."
"Lad!" cried Elizabeth, turning to her son with vehement self-defence, "if I give him my Lily—my Lily, as he says——"
"That will not be to give him justice," cried Dick. "Mother, think before you do it—it will never come to good."
"They would murder my lad," said Elizabeth, shivering; "they would take no excuse, they would give no mercy. But when he's better he'll know what to say for himself. They would put the stain of blood on your father's house. We could never be clear of it to the third and fourth generations. But him there, there's no trouble in his soul; he will not suffer like the one who did it. If he was in danger of his life it would be different. I tell you, not a hair of him should be touched; but there's no danger of his life. And if I give him my Lily, as he says——"
This controversy went on swift and low-toned, while the others stood scarcely listening. Roger was full of the excitement of despair; he had been warned that the warrant was out to arrest him and the officers on their way. What could he say against it? There was every proof that he was the man. He had been traced to the fatal spot, he had been seen speeding like a ghost up the hillside afterwards; he had given no alarm; and there had been that fatal quarrel the day before. Every fact was against him, even to a blood-stain on his dress, which he had got unawares as he pushed through the brushwood to see what it was the madman had done. By no way but by giving the madman up could he clear himself. And there was no time to think; all through that day he had fancied that every one shrank from him and avoided him. When the old village constable, whom he had known all his life, ventured to hint at his danger, it seemed to Roger, impetuous and wretched as he was, that there was but one thing for him to do. And he had plunged away through the woods in the twilight as Abel Murray had done before him. He would go if Lily would go with him. To this he made up his mind with the obstinate simplicity of his nature. What was there at home to make him desire to stay? He could neither marry as he liked nor live as he liked. His sister, the only bright thing in the house, was plunged into trouble. There was no comfort wherever he looked. If he had Lily to go with him, he would go.
As for Lily, she stood in a wilder excitement, still feeling her fate in the balance. She did not think of herself as having any choice. She seemed to be suspended between a wild agony of happiness and a dreary abyss of evil. To be raised, giddy, to the height she did not realise, or dropped horribly into the pit below, was an affair of a minute or two. She stood breathless, waiting—with her eyes wavering between her mother and her lover, not knowing what was to be.
"Sir," said Elizabeth, breaking from her son's detaining hold, "you're doing a great thing for me, and I'll do a great thing for you. You'll promise me to wed my Lily? You'll vow to me afore God that she shall be your wife?"