He deserves my pardon.
And he shall have it, such as it is. But what he said was cruel
indeed--indeed it was."
The girl walked to the neuk window and put her hand on the old wheel.
The tears were creeping up into the eyes that looked vacantly towards
the south.
"Very, very cruel; but then he was angry. The men had angered him. He
was sore put about. Poor Willy, he suffers much. Yet it was cruel; it
_was_ cruel, indeed it was."
Rotha walked across the kitchen and again took hold of the
rannel-tree. It was as though her tempest-tossed soul were traversing
afresh every incident of the scenes that had just before been enacted
on that spot where now she stood alone.
Alone! the burden of a new grief was with her. To be suspected of
selfish motives when nothing but sacrifice had been in her heart, that
was hard to bear. To be suspected of such motives by that man, of all
others, who should have looked into her heart and seen what lay there,
that was yet harder. "Willy's sore put about, poor lad," she told
herself again; but close behind this soothing reflection crept the
biting memory, "It was cruel, what he said; indeed it was.
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