"Twt, twt!" said Sara, "thee art all wrong, my boy. 'Tisn't Morva he has married at all! and that's how I thought a letter could not explain everything to thee as I could myself, and bring thee home to the old country again."
"No, no; I have said good-bye to Garthowen, I will never go there again."
"Well! why?" said Sara, still holding his hands, and looking into his face with those compelling eyes of hers.
"There is no need to tell thee, Sara," said the sailor, a dogged, defiant look coming into his eyes. "I have said good-bye to Garthowen, and will never darken its doors again."
"And yet thou hast been very happy there?"
"Ah! yes," said Gethin, a tender smile chasing away the angry look on his face. "I was very happy there indeed, when I whistled at my plough, with the song of the larks in my ears, and the smell of the furze filling the air. But now--no--no! I must never turn my face there again."
"Wilt not, indeed?" asked Sara. "Wait till I've told thee all, my lad. And now I have a strange story to tell thee, 'tis of thy poor old father, Gethin."
"My father? what's the matter with him? Thou hast said he's alive, what then? Is he ill? Not ill? What then, Sara?" and his face took a frightened expression; "what evil has come upon the old man?"
His voice sank very low as he clutched the old woman's hand and wrung it unconsciously.
"What is it? not shame, Sara--say, woman, 'tis not shame that has come upon him in his old age!"
"Shame," she said, "in the eyes of men, is sometimes honour in the eyes of God! Listen, Gethin--Dost remember the night of thy going from Garthowen?"
He nodded with a serious look in his eyes.
"That night I had a dream; only, I was awake when I saw it. I was at Garthowen in my dream, and I saw a dark figure entering Gwilym Morris's room; he stooped down and opened a drawer, and took something out of it. I could not see the man's face, but it was not _thee_, Gethin, though thy sudden disappearance made them think at first, that thou wert the thief; only Morva and I knew better. She heard a footstep that night, and when she went out to the passage, she saw thee coming out of that room. But she and I knew that it was not thou who took the money. What dreadful sight met thee in that room, Gethin bâch, we did not know, but it was something that made thee reel out like a drunken man."