That Ralph would be innocent of the
crime could not lessen the horror of such an end. Then there was the
certainty that conviction on such a charge would include the seizure
of the property. Rotha dwelt but little on the chances of an innocent
man's acquittal. The law was to her uninformed mind not an agent of
justice, but an instrument of punishment, and to be apprehended was to
be condemned.
Ralph must be kept out of the grip of the law. 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.
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