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.