l, and anxious to get home. She rose, and
offering Macdonald her hand, smiled down into his face, and said: "Good
by! We must try to forgive."

As he took her hand, Macdonald's dark face began to work, and he broke
forth into a bitter cry.

"He took me unawares! And it was a coward's blow! and I will not forgive
him until I have given him what he deserves, if the Lord spares me!" And
then he poured forth, in hot and bitter words, the story of the great
fight. By the time he had finished his tale Ranald had come in from the
kitchen, and was standing with clenched fists and face pale with passion
at the foot of the bed.

As Mrs. Murray listened to this story her eyes began to burn, and when
it was over, she burst forth: "Oh, it was a cruel and cowardly and
brutal thing for men to do! And did you beat them off?" she asked.

"Aye, and that we did," burst in Ranald. And in breathless haste and
with flashing eye he told them of Macdonald Bhain's part in the fight.

"Splendid!" cried the minister's wife, forgetting herself for the
moment.

"But he let him go," said Ranald, sadly. "He would not strike him, but
just let him go."

Then the minister's wife cried again: "Ah, he is a great man, your
uncle! And a great Christian. Greater than I could have been, for I
would have slain him then and there." Her eyes flashed, and the color
flamed in her face as she uttered these words.

"Aye," said Macdonald Dubh, regarding her with deep satisfaction. His
tone and look recalled the minister's wife, and turning to Ranald, she
added, sadly:

"But your uncle was right, Ranald, and we must forgive even as he did."

"That," cried Ranald, with fierce emphasis, "I will never do, until once
I will be having my hands on his throat."

"Hush, Ranald!" said the minister's wife. "I know it is hard, but we
must forgive. You see we MUST forgive. And we must ask Him to help us,
who has more to forgive than any other."

But she said no more to Macdonald Dubh on that subject that morning. The
fire of the battle was in her heart, and she felt she could more easily
sympathize with his desire for vengeance than with the Christian grace
of forgiveness. But as they rode home together through the bush, where
death had trailed them so closely the night before, the sweet sunlight
and the crisp, fresh air, and all the still beauty of the morning,
working with the memory of their saving, rebuked and soothed and
comforted her, and when Ranald turned b