Was her great sorrow indeed gone?
Had he driven it away from her?
If so, was it not all, and more, being gathered up into his own heart instead?
Was it not so?
"You have borne it bravely, Rotha--very bravely," he answered.

"Do you think, now, that I could have borne it as you have done ?" There was a tremor in his tone and a tenderness of expression in his face that Rotha had never before seen there.
"Bear it as I have done ?" she repeated.

"There is nothing you could not bear." And her radiant face was lit up in that white moonlight with a perfect sunshine of beauty.
"I don't know, Rotha, my girl," he answered falteringly; "I don't know--yet." The last words were spoken with his head dropped on to his breast.
Rotha stepped in front of him, and, putting her hand on his shoulder, stopped him and looked searchingly in his face.
"What is this sadness, Ralph?
Is there something you have not told me--something behind, which, when it comes, will take the joy out of this glad news you give me ?" "I could not be so cruel as that, Rotha; do you think I could ?" A smile was playing upon his features as he smoothed her hair over her forehead and drew forward the loose hood that had fallen from it.
"And there is nothing to come after--nothing ?" "Nothing that need mar your happiness, my girl, or disturb your love.
You love your father, do you not ?" "Better than all the world!" Rotha answered impulsively.

"Poor father!" "Better than all the world," echoed Ralph vacantly, and with something like a sigh.

Her impetuous words seemed to touch him deeply, and he repeated them once more, but they died away on his lips.