"You must be married on the fifteenth. Get something ready. I will see Mrs. Frostham and ask her to help you a bit." "Whom am I to marry, Will? On the fifteenth? It is impossible! See how ill I am!" "You are to marry Ulfar Fenwick. Ill? Of course you are ill; but you must go to Aspatria Church on the fifteenth. Ulfar Fenwick will meet you there. He will make you his wife." "You have forced him to marry me. I will not go, I will not go. I will not marry Ulfar Fenwick." "You shall go, if I carry you in my arms! You shall marry him, or I--will--kill--you!" "Then kill me! Death does not terrify me. Nothing can be more cruel hard than the life I have lived for a long time." He looked at her steadily, and she returned the gaze. His face was like a flame; hers was white as snow. "There are things in life worse than death, Aspatria. There is dishonour, disgrace, shame." "Is sorrow dishonour? Is it a disgrace to love? Is it a shame to weep when love is dead?" "Ay, my little lass, it may be a great wrong to love and to weep. There is a shadow around you, Aspatria; if people speak of you they drop their voices and shake their heads; they wonder, and they think evil. Your good name is being smiled and shaken away, and I cannot find any one, man or woman, to thrash for it." She stood listening to him with wide-open eyes, and lips dropping a little apart, every particle of colour fled from them. "It is for this reason Fenwick is to marry you." "You forced him; I know you forced him." She seemed to drag the words from her mouth; they almost shivered; they broke in two as they fell halting on the ear. "Well, I must say he did not need forcing, when he heard your good name was in danger. He said, manly enough, that he would make it good with his own name. I do not much think I could have either frightened or flogged him into marrying you." "Oh, Will! I cannot marry him in this way! Let people say wicked things of me, if they will." "Nay, I will not! I cannot help them thinking evil; but they shall not look it, and they shall not say it." "Perhaps they do not even think it, Will. How can you tell?" "Well enough, Aspatria. How many women come to Ambar-Side now? If you gave a dance next week, you could not get a girl in Allerdale to accept your invitation." "Will!" "It is the truth. You must stop all this by marrying Ulfar Fenwick. He saw it was only just and right: I will say that much for him." "Let me alone until morning. I will do what you say.--Oh, mother! mother I want mother now!" "My poor little lass! I am only brother Will; but I am sorry for thee, I am that!" She tottered to the bedside, and he lifted her gently, and laid her on it; and then, as softly as if he was afraid of waking her, he went out of the room. Outside the door he found Brune. He had taken off his shoes, and was in his stocking-feet. Will grasped him by the shoulder and led him to his own chamber.