Yes, that was beyond question.

Whether the woman's words were true or false, the issues were now too serious to be played with.
She had sent her father in pursuit of Ralph, and the effect of what he would tell of the forthcoming eviction might influence Ralph to adopt a course that would be imprudent, even dangerous--nay, even fatal, in the light of the more recent disclosure.
What had she done?
God alone could say what would come of it.
But perhaps her father could still be overtaken and brought back.

Yet who was to do it?
She herself was a woman, doomed as such to sit at her poor little wheel, to lie here like an old mastiff or its weak tottering whelp, while Ralph was walking--perhaps at her bidding--to his death.
She would tell Willy, and urge him to go in pursuit of Sim.

Yet, no, that was not possible.

She would have to confess that she had acted against his wish, and that he had been right while she had been wrong.
Even that humiliation was as nothing in the face of the disaster that she foresaw: but Willy and Sim!--Rotha shuddered as she reflected how little the two names even could go together.
The morning was growing apace, and still Rotha's perplexity increased.
She went downstairs and made breakfast with an absent mind.
The farm people came and went; they spoke, and she answered; but all was as a dream, except only the one grim reality that lay on her mind.
She was being driven to despair.