To see her win the love and be won by the love of his brother--perhaps it would soften his exile with thoughts of recompense for a wrong that it had been his fate to do to her and hers, though she knew it not.

There was something like the white heat of subdued passion in his voice when he spoke again.
"He _does_ love you, Rotha," he said quietly, "and he will ask you to be his wife.

But he cannot do so yet, and, meantime, while my mother lives--while I am gone--God knows where--while I am away from the old home--I ask you now once more to stay." The great clock in the corner ticked out loud in the silence of the next minute; only that and the slow breathing of the dog sleeping on the hearth fell on the ear.
"Yes, I will stay," said the girl; and while she spoke Willy Ray walked into the kitchen.
Then they talked together long and earnestly, these three, under the shadow of the terrible mystery that hung above them all, of life and death.

Ralph spoke as one overawed by a sense of fatality.

The world and its vicissitudes had left behind engraven on his heart a message and lesson, and it was not altogether a hopeful one.