‘It’s t’ worst as can happen to him,’ said Philip.  ’More likely he’ll be transported:  maybe he’ll be brought in innocent after all.’

‘No,’ said Sylvia, heavily, as one without hope—­as if she were reading some dreadful doom in the tablets of the awful future.  ‘They’ll hang him.  Oh, feyther! feyther!’ she choked out, almost stuffing her apron into her mouth to deaden the sound, and catching at Philip’s hand, and wringing it with convulsive force, till the pain that he loved was nearly more than he could bear.  No words of his could touch such agony; but irrepressibly, and as he would have done it to a wounded child, he bent over her, and kissed her with a tender, trembling kiss.  She did not repulse it, probably she did not even perceive it.

At that moment Phoebe came in with the gruel.  Philip saw her, and knew, in an instant, what the old woman’s conclusion must needs be; but Sylvia had to be shaken by the now standing Philip, before she could be brought back to the least consciousness of the present time.  She lifted up her white face to understand his words, then she rose up like one who slowly comes to the use of her limbs.

‘I suppose I mun go,’ she said; ’but I’d sooner face the dead.  If she asks me, Philip, what mun I say?’

‘She’ll not ask yo’,’ said he, ‘if yo’ go about as common.  She’s never asked yo’ all this time, an’ if she does, put her on to me.  I’ll keep it from her as long as I can; I’ll manage better nor I’ve done wi’ thee, Sylvie,’ said he, with a sad, faint smile, looking with fond penitence at her altered countenance.

‘Thou mustn’t blame thysel’,’ said Sylvia, seeing his regret.  ’I brought it on me mysel’; I thought I would ha’ t’ truth, whativer came on it, and now I’m not strong enough to stand it, God help me!’ she continued, piteously.

‘Oh, Sylvie, let me help yo’!  I cannot do what God can,—­I’m not meaning that, but I can do next to Him of any man.  I have loved yo’ for years an’ years, in a way it’s terrible to think on, if my love can do nought now to comfort yo’ in your sore distress.’

‘Cousin Philip,’ she replied, in the same measured tone in which she had always spoken since she had learnt the extent of her father’s danger, and the slow stillness of her words was in harmony with the stony look of her face, ’thou’s a comfort to me, I couldn’t bide my life without thee; but I cannot take in the thought o’ love, it seems beside me quite; I can think on nought but them that is quick and them that is dead.’

CHAPTER XXVII

GLOOMY DAYS

Philip had money in the Fosters’ bank, not so much as it might have been if he had not had to pay for the furniture in his house.  Much of this furniture was old, and had belonged to the brothers Foster, and they had let Philip have it at a very reasonable rate; but still the purchase of it had diminished the amount of his savings.  But on the sum which he possessed he drew largely—­he drew all—­nay, he overdrew his account somewhat, to his former masters’ dismay, although the kindness of their hearts overruled the harder arguments of their heads.