uilty man, the man to be shunned, the man
from whose contaminating touch all other men might fairly shrink. It
never occurred to Sim that there lay buried at his own heart a secret
that could change the relations in which he stood towards this younger
and more self-righteous son of Angus Ray.

Perhaps, if it had once been borne in upon him that another than
himself was involved in the suspicion which had settled upon his
name--if he had even come to realize that Rotha might suffer the
stigma of a fatal reproach for no worse offence than that she was her
father's daughter--perhaps, if he had once felt this as a possible
contingency, he would have shaken off the black cloud that seemed to
justify the odium in which he was held by those about him, and lifted
up his head for her sake if not for his own.

But Sim lacked virile strength. The disease of melancholy had long
kept its seat at his heart, and that any shadow of doubt could rest on
Rotha as a result of a misdeed, or supposed misdeed, of his had never
yet occurred to Sim's mind.

And truly Rotha was above the blight of withering doubt. Rude daughter
of a rude age, in a rude country and without the refinements of
education, still how pure and sweet she was; how strong, and yet how
tender; how unconscious in her instinct of self-sacrifice; how devoted
in her loyalty; how absolute in her trust!

But deep and rich as was Rotha's simple nature, it was yet incomplete.
She herself was made aware that a great change was even now coming to
pass. She understood the transformation little, if at all; but it
seemed as though, somehow, a new sense were taking hold of her. And,
indeed, a new light had floated into her little orbit. Was it too
bright as yet for her to see it for what it was? It flooded everything
about her, and bathed the world in other hues than the old time.
Disaster had followed on disaster in the days that had just gone by,
but nevertheless--she knew not how--it was not all gloom in her heart.
In the waking hours of the night there was more than the memory of the
late events in her mind; her dreams were not all nightmares; and in
the morning, when the swift recoil of sad thoughts rushed in at her
first awakening, a sentiment of indefinite solace came close behind
it. What was it that was coming to pass?

It was love that was now dawning upon her, though still vague and
indeterminate; it hardly knew its object.

Willy Ray took note of this change in the gi