placed himself at the pony's head again, and trudged on speechlessly along the rough road, which was now nothing more than the tracks made by cart-wheels across the moor, with deep ruts over which he stumbled like a man who is worn out with fatigue. In a quarter of an hour the low cottage was reached, surrounded by a little belt of fields and a few storm-beaten fir-trees. There was a dull glow of red to be seen through the lattice window, telling Phebe of a smouldering fire, made up for her by her father before going back to his workshop at the end of the field behind the house. She stirred up the wood-ashes and threw upon them some dry, light fagots of gorse, and in a few seconds a dazzling light filled the little room from end to end. It was a familiar place to Roland Sefton, and he took no notice of it. But it was a curious interior. Every niche of the walls was covered with carved oak; no wainscoted hall in the country could be more richly or more fancifully decorated. The chimney-piece over the open hearth-stone, a wide chimney-piece, was deeply carved with curious devices. The doors and window-frames, the cupboards and the shelves for the crockery, were all of dark oak, fashioned into leaves and ferns, with birds on their nests, and timid rabbits, and still more timid wood-mice peeping out of their coverts, cocks crowing with uplifted crest, and chickens nestling under the hen-mother's wings, sheaves of corn, and tall, club-headed bulrushes—all the objects familiar to a country life. The dancing light played upon them, and shone also upon Roland Sefton's sad and weary face. Phebe drew her father's carved arm-chair close to the fire.
"Sit down," she said, "and let me get you something to eat."
"Yes," he answered, sinking down wearily in the chair, "I am nearly dying of hunger. Good Heavens! is it possible I can be hungry?"
He spoke with an indescribable expression of mingled astonishment and dread. Suddenly there broke upon him the possibility of suffering want in many forms in the future, and yet he felt ashamed of foreseeing them in this, the first day of his great calamity. Until this moment he had been too absorbed in dwelling upon the moral and social consequences of his crime, to realize how utterly worn out he was; but all his physical strength appeared to collapse in an instant.
And now for the first time Phebe beheld the change in him, and stood gazing at him in mute surprise and sorrow. He had always been careful of his personal appearance, with a refinement and daintiness which had grown especially fastidious since his marriage. But now his coat, wet through during the night, and dried only by the keen air of the hills, was creased and soiled, and his boots were thickly covered with mud and clay. His face and hands were unwashed, and his hair hung unbrushed over his forehead. Phebe's whole heart was stirred at this pitiful change, and she laid her hand on his shoulder with a timid but affectionate touch.
"Mr. Roland," she said, "go up-stairs and put yourself to rights a little; and give me your clothes and your boots to brush. You'll feel better when you are more like yourself."
He smiled faintly as he looked up at her quivering lips and eyes full of unshed tears. But her homely advice was good, and he was glad to follow it. Her little room above was lined with richly carved oak panels like the kitchen below, and a bookcase contained her books, many of which he had himself given to her. There was an easel standing under the highest part of the shelving roof, where a sky-light was let into the thatch, and a half-finished painting rested on it. But he did not give a glance toward it. There was very little interest to him just now in Phebe's pursuits, though she owed most of them to him.
By the time he was ready to go down, supper was waiting for him on the warm and bright hearth, and he fell upon it almost ravenously. It was twenty-four hours since he had last eaten. Phebe sat almost out of sight in the shadow of a large settle, with her knitting in her hand, and her eyes only seeking his face when any movement seemed to indicate that she could serve him in some way. But in these brief glances she noticed the color coming back to his face, and new vigor and resolution changing his whole aspect.
"And now," he said, when his hunger was satisfied, "I can talk to you, Phebe."
CHAPTER V.
A CONFESSION.
But Roland Sefton sat silent, with his shapely hands resting on his knees, and his handsome face turned toward the hearth, where the logs had burned down and emitted only a low and fitful flame. The little room was scarcely lighted by it, and looked all the darker for the blackness of the small uncurtained window, through which the ebony face of night was peering in. This bare, uncovered casement troubled him, and from time to time he turned his eyes uneasily toward it. But what need could there be of a curtain, when they were a mile away from any habitation, and where no road crossed the moor, except the rugged green pathway, worn into deep ruts by old Marlowe's own wagon? Yet as if touched by some vague sympathy with him, Phebe rose, and pinned one of her large rough working-aprons across it.
"Phebe," he said, as she stepped softly back to her seat, "you and I have been friends a long time; and your father and I have been friends all my life. Do you recollect me staying here a whole week when I was a school-boy?"
"Yes," she answered, her eyes glistening in the dusky light; "but for you I should have known nothing, only what work had to be done for father. You taught me my alphabet that week, and the hymns I have said every night since then before I go to sleep. You helped me to teach myself painting; and if I ever paint a picture worth looking at it will be your doing."
"No, no; you are a born artist, Phebe Marlowe," he said, "though perhaps the world may never know it. But being such friends as you say, I will trust you. Do you think me worthy of trust, true and honest as a man should be, Phebe?"
"As true and honest as the day," she cried, with eager emphasis.
"And a Christian?" he added, in a lower voice.
"Yes," she answered, "I do not know a Christian if you are not one."
"That is the sting of it," he groaned; "true, and honest, and a Christian! And yet, Phebe, if I were taken by the police to-night, or if I be taken by them to-morrow, I shall be lodged in Riversborough jail, and tried before a jury of my towns-people at the assizes next month."
"No, it is impossible!" she cried, stretching out her brown, hard-working hand, and laying it on his white and shapely one, which had never known toil.
"You would not send me to jail," he said, "I know that well enough. But I deserve it, my poor girl. They would find me guilty and sentence me to a convict prison. I saw Dartmoor prison on my wedding journey with Felicita, Heaven help me! She liked the wild, solitary moor, with its great tors and its desolate stillness, and one day we went near to the prison. Those grim walls seemed to take possession of me; I felt oppressed and crushed by them. I could not forget them for days after, even with Felicita by my side."
His voice trembled as he spoke, and a quiver ran through his whole frame, which seemed to thrill through Phebe's; but she only pressed her pitiful hand more closely on his.
"I might have escaped last night," he went on, "but I stumbled over a poor girl in the street, dying. A young girl, no older than you, without a penny or a friend; a sinner too like myself; and I could not leave her there alone. Only in finding help for her I lost my chance. The train to London was gone, and there was no other till ten this morning. I expected Mr. Clifford to be at the bank to-day; if I had only known he would not be there I could have got away then. But I came here, why I hardly know. You could not hide me for long if you would;
