shift are just about ganging down, and
they want to tak' a few mair forks with them. They've telt me 'at the
timber is splitting like matchwood under the sandy vein."

Hugh Ritson made an effort to gather the purport of Gubblum's message.

"Tell them to take the forks," he said in a low tone.

Gubblum was backing out, and stopped.

"I reckon thoo's not heard the last frae auld Mattha's," he said in
another voice.

"What is it, Oglethorpe?" said Hugh, his head bent over the table.

"Robbie South'et's wife has been up to t' brow, and says that Mercy's
laal thing is gone."

Hugh did not lift his eyes.

"Is that the last?" he said.

"Nay, but warse. The lass herself tore the bandage frae her eyes, and
she's gone stone blind, and that's foriver."

Hugh's head bent closer over the table.

"Good-night, Oglethorpe," he said.

Gubblum backed out, muttering to himself as he returned to the shaft, "A
cool hand, how-an'-iver."

The moment the door closed, Hugh Ritson tramped the floor in restless
perambulations. What had he thought of doing? Delivering himself to
justice as a perjurer? Had he, then, no duty left in life that he must
needs gratify his revenge in a kind of death? What of the woman who had
suffered for him? What of the broken heart and the wretched home? Were
these as nothing against the humiliation of a proud spirit?

Never for an instant, never in his bitterest agony, did Hugh Ritson lie
to his own soul and say that the resolution he had formed was prompted
by remorse for what he had done to Paul Ritson; not revenge for what he
had suffered from Paul Drayton. To be a saint when sick; to find the
conscience active when defeat overwhelmed it--that was for the weak
dregs of humanity. But such paltering was not for him.

On the one hand revenge, on the other duty--which was he to follow? The
wretched man could come to no decision; and when the fingers of his
watch pointed to one o'clock he lay down on the couch to rest.

It was not sleep that he wanted; sleep had of late become too full of
terrors; but sleep overcame him, nevertheless. His face, when he slept,
was the face of a man in pain; and dreams came that were the distorted
reflections of his waking thoughts. He dreamed that he had died in
infancy. Calm, serene, very sweet, and peaceful, his little innocent
face of childhood looked up from the white pillow. He thought his mother
bent over him, and shed many tears; but he himself belonged to anot