ly.

"Is it anything new?" she asked.

"No, no. Nothing new," said he, turning toward her. At the sight of
her fond wet eyes he broke down.

"Oh, Katie! my woman," he groaned, "it's ill with me this day. I hae
come to a strait bit o' the way and I canna win through. `Forgive, and
ye shall be forgiven,' the Book says, and this day I feel that I havena
forgiven."

Instead of answering, she bent over him till his grey head lay on her
shoulder and rested there. He was silent for a little.

"When I saw him younder to-day, smooth and smiling, standing so well
with his fellow-men, my heart rose up against him; I daredna bide, lest
I should cry out in the kirk before them all and call God's justice in
question--God that lets Jacob Holt go about in His sunshine, with all
men's good word on him, when our lad's light went out in darkness so
long ago. Is it just, Katie? Call ye it right and just?"

She did not answer a word, but soothed him with hand and voice as she
might have soothed a child. She had done it many times before during
the forty years that she had been his wife, but she had never, even in
the time of their sorest troubles, seen him so moved. She sat down
quietly beside him and patiently waited.

"Has anything happened, or is anything threatening that I dinna ken of?"
asked she after a little.

"No, nothing new has happened. But I am growing an old failed man,
Katie, and no' able to stand up against my ain fears."

"Ay, we are growing old and failed; our day is near over, and so are our
fears. Why should we fear? Jacob Holt canna move the foundations of
the earth. And even though he could, we needna fear, for `God is our
refuge and strength.'"

He was leaning back with closed eyes, tired and fainthearted, and he did
not answer.

"There's no fear for the bairns," she went on, cheerfully. "They are
good bairns. There are few that hae the sense and discretion of our
Katie, and her mother's no' without judgment, though she is but a
feckless body as to health, and has been a heavy handful to us. They'll
be taken care of. The Lord is ay kind."

And so she went on, gentle soothing alternating with more gentle
chiding, all the time keeping away from the sore place in his heart, not
daring for his sake and for her own to touch it till this rare moment of
weakness should be past.

"You are wearied, and no wonder, with the heat and your long fast; lie
down on your bed and rest till it be time t