try-born boy and lacking in worldly experience,
as well as education, was no fool. He knew that two shiploads of
granite, though sold at a fabulous price, would not pay a profit equal
to half the cost the quarry had so far been, to say nothing of a
dividend, and the only conclusion was not flattering to his firm's
honesty. Then one by one, every little detail of the entire affair;
every instruction they had given; the stock they had presented to him;
the letters they had written; the donation to the parson; Jack
Nickerson's innuendoes; and now this unreasonable payment of dividends
which he knew were not earned,--all passed in review. Honest himself, he
was slow to suspect dishonesty in others, but the longer and more
carefully he weighed these facts in his mind the plainer he saw the word
"fraud" written on each one of them.

And he had put every dollar of the few he had saved into this stock and
borrowed some besides! And worse than that; this honest old fellow Jess,
out of good will to him had put five hundred in and persuaded others to
invest also!

Suspicion is like sailing in a fog; we cannot tell where clear air ends
and fog begins, only the first we know the air seems damp and chill, the
sun obscured and danger near. And so with Winn, there on Rockhaven, with
his vocation and paths in life all mapped out, these people looking
toward him as a benefactor and ready to trust him with their money and
the sun of success shining! And all at once the air seemed chill with
the fog of deceit and fraud, and he knew not where he was. To refuse
those who would buy more stock, he dare not, since it would awaken
suspicion; to accept it was as bad, for it compromised him the deeper.
For a long hour he tried to think a way for himself out of this fog, and
the more he thought the more positive his suspicion grew, and then he
returned to his abode. And there in Rock Lane and as if to increase his
burden of responsibility, was Mona sitting in the porch of her humble
home alone.

"Why, little girl," he said softly, pausing at the gate, "are you not
abed and asleep?"

And Mona, unconscious of how or in what way it would strike him, and in
the utter innocence of her heart, came quickly out to where he was
standing.

"I was lonesome," she said simply, "and waiting for you to come back. I
saw you go up the hill and wondered what for." And Winn, despondent and
worried as he was, and looking down into the sweet face and earnest eyes