“My mother—true.” Willy had not thought of this before; that Rotha's mind had been running on the possible dangers to his mother of the threatened eviction had never occurred to him until now. He had been wrong—entirely so. His impulse was to take the girl in his arms and confess the injustice of his reflections; but he shrank from this at the instant, and then his mind wriggled with apologies for his error.
“To spare mother the peril of being turned into the roads—that would have been something; yes, much. Ralph himself must have chosen to do that. But once in the clutches of those bloodhounds, and it might have meant banishment for years, for life perhaps—aye, perhaps even death itself.”
“And even so,” said Rotha, stepping back a pace and throwing up her head, while her hands were clinched convulsively,—“and even so,” she repeated. “Death comes to all; it will come to him among the rest, and how could he die better? If he were a thousand times my brother, I could give him up to such a death.”
“Rotha, my darling,” cried Willy, throwing his arms about her, “I am ashamed. Forgive me if I said you were thinking of yourself. Look up, my darling; give me but one look, and say you have pardoned me.”
Rotha had dropped her eyes, and the tears were now blinding them.
“I was a monster to think of it, Rotha; look in my face, my girl, and say you forgive me.”
“I could have followed you over the world, Willy, and looked for no better fortune. I could have trusted to you, and loved you, though we had no covering but the skies above us.”
“Don't kill me with remorse, Rotha; don't heap coals of fire on my head. Look up and smile but once, my darling.”
Rotha lifted her tear-dimmed eyes to the eyes of her lover, and Willy stooped to kiss her trembling lips. At that instant an impulse took hold of him which he was unable to resist, and words that he struggled to suppress forced their own utterance.
“Great God!” he cried, and drew back his head with a quick recoil, “how like your father you are!”