How could he answer her? He did not find words. And instead, there came over him such a rush of tenderness in view of what was surely to fall upon the girl, in the present and in the future, that for a moment he was unmanned. To hide the corresponding rush of water to his eyes, Mr. Digby was fain to bow his face in the hand which rested on his knees. Neither the action nor the cause of it escaped Rotha's shrewdness and awakened sense of fear, but it silenced her at the same time; and it was not till a little interval had passed, though before Mr. Digby had lifted up his head, that the silence became intolerable to her. She heard the sea and saw the breakers no more, or only with a feeling of impatience. "Well," she said at last, in a changed voice, hard, and dry,--"why don't you tell me what it is?" If she was impolite, she did not mean it, and her friend knew she did not mean it. "I hardly can, Rotha," he answered sorrowfully. "I know what you mean," she said, "but it isn't true. You think so, but it isn't true." "What are you speaking of?" "You know. I know what you mean; you are speaking of--mother!" The word came out with difficulty and only by stern determination. "It is not true, Mr. Digby." "What is not true, Rotha?" "You know. It is not true!" she repeated vehemently. "But Rotha, my child, what if it were true?" "You know it couldn't be true," she said, fixing on him a pair of eyes almost wild in their intensity. "It couldn't be true. What would become of me?" "I will take care of you, always." "You!" she retorted, with a scorn supreme and only matched by the pain with which she spoke. "What are you? It _couldn't_ be, Mr. Digby." "Listen to me, child. Rotha, I have come here to talk to you about it." He saw how full the girl's eyes were growing, of tears just swelling and ready to burst forth; and he stopped. But she impatiently dashed them right and left. "I don't want to talk about it. It's no use, here or anywhere else. I would like to go home." "Not yet. Before you go home I want you to be quite composed, and to have good command of yourself, so that you may not distress your mother. She cannot bear it. Therefore she asked me to tell you, because she dreaded to see your suffering. Can you bear it and hide it, Rotha, bravely, for her sake?" "_She_ asked you to tell me?" cried the girl; and Mr. Digby never forgot the face of wild agony with which she looked at him. He answered quietly, "Yes;" though his heart was bleeding for her. "She thinks--" "She knows how it must be. It is nothing new, or strange, or sorrowful, to her,--except only for you. But in her love for you, she greatly dreads to see your sorrow. Do you think, Rotha, for her sake, you can bear up bravely, and be quiet, and not shew what you feel? For her sake?"