forget after a little and get
back her natural cheerfulness again."

Mrs Hume ceased suddenly. For a moment a strong temptation assailed
her. If ever man and wife were perfectly one in heart and thought and
desires, these two were. As for the wife, no thought or wish of hers,
whether of great things or of small, seemed quite her own till she had
also made it his. Seeing the look which had come to her face, her
husband waited for her to say more. But she was silent. She had no
right to utter the words which had almost risen to her lips. To tell
another's secret--if indeed there were a secret--would be betrayal and a
cruel wrong. Even to her husband she might not tell her thoughts, and
indeed, if she had but known it, there was, as far as Allison Bain was
concerned, no secret to tell.

But Robin, who was in the way of sharing with his mother most things
which greatly interested himself, had told her about his morning run
over the hills after John Beaton, and how he had found him "looking at
nothing" on the very spot where, the day before, he had got his first
look at Allison Bain, and how he had turned and run home again without
being seen. Robin only told the story. He drew no inference from it,
at least he did not for his mother's hearing.

His mother did that for herself. Remembering John's dazed condition at
worship on the first night of his homecoming, it is not surprising she
should have said to herself that "the lad's time had come."

And what of Allison? She had asked herself that question a good many
times since John's departure; but she owned that never, either by word
or look, had Allison betrayed herself, if indeed she had anything to
betray, and of that she was less assured as the days went on. But
whether or not, it was evident, Mrs Hume assured herself, that Allison
was "coming to herself" at last.

And so she was. Young and naturally hopeful, it is not to be supposed
that Allison's sorrow, heavy and sore though it was, could make all the
future dark to her, and bow her always to the earth. She had lost
herself for a time in the maze of trouble, into which death, and her
enforced marriage, and her brother's sin and its punishment, had brought
her. But she was coming to the end, and out of it now. She was no
longer living and walking in a dream. She was able to look over the
last year of her life at home with calmness, and she could see how,
being overwrought in mind and body, spent wi