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.”