window as weel,
lest the de'il should hang about to try and tempt the puir daughter of
Eve to fresh sin. For though she means reet now, the lassie's weak; and
though she don't know't, there may yet be a bit of the auld weed in her
heart not yet rooted oot; but wait a wee, and I'll have that sweet heart
of hers that clean and reet, that it shall blossom again beautifully,
and I'd like to see the weed then as would get in."

Book 1, Chapter XXV.

SIR MURRAY'S THOUGHTS.

It was now an acknowledged fact that there could be no further intimacy
between the residents at Castle and Hall. The Nortons led a more than
ever secluded life, Mrs Norton finding it necessary to retrench in
every possible way to meet their altered circumstances, for the iron
company's affairs were worse and worse, and people loudly blamed Norton
for his folly. "Why did he not become bankrupt," they said, "as other
people would?" But Norton declined all such relief, his brow grew
wrinkled and his hair slightly grizzled at the sides, but he was
determined to pay to the last penny he could muster, and wait for the
change that he trusted would come, for his faith was perfect in his
enterprise.

Mrs Norton never complained, but always welcomed him with a smile when
he returned from his long absences. Cruel doubts would come at times,
brought up, perhaps, by some silly village tattle, but she cast them out
with a shudder, as if they were something too loathsome to be harboured
even for an instant; and, after such battles with herself, she would
greet her husband with increased tenderness, as she strove to chase away
the settled melancholy which oppressed him.

Twice only during many months had he encountered Sir Murray Gernon, to
meet with fierce, scowling looks of hatred; but no word was spoken, and
Philip Norton never knew the curses that were showered upon his head.
It was well for him, too, that he did not know that many a night, Marion
Gernon, brokenhearted and despairing, knelt by her solitary pillow to
say, almost in the words of the old prophet, "It is enough," and to pray
that she might pass away.

It was only at times, though, that such despairing thoughts oppressed
her; at others she would bewail her wickedness, and pray for strength,
as she looked upon the tiny slumbering face of her infant, and then
bathed it with tears.

For Lady Gernon's was now a sad and solitary life; Sir Murray seemed to
be plunged in some abstruse study, takin