By the following morning Rotha had decided that her duty at this
crisis lay one way only, and that way she must take. Ralph had said it
would be well for her to become Willy's wife, and she had promised him
never to leave the Moss while his mother lived. She would do as he had
said.

Willy had asked her for a sign, and she must give hint, one--a sign
that she was willing to say "Yes" if he spoke again to-day as he had
spoken yesterday.

Having once settled this point, her spirits experienced a complete
elevation. What should the sign be? Rotha walked to the neuk window
and stood to think, her hand on the wheel and her eyes towards the
south. What, then, should the sign be?

It was by no means easy to hit on a sign that would show him at a
glance that her mind was made up; that, however she may have wavered
in her purpose yesterday, her resolve was fixed to-day. She stood long
and thought of many plans, but none harmonized with her mood.

"Why should I not tell him--just in a word?" Often as she put if to
herself so, she shrank from the ordeal involved.

No, she must hit on a sign, but she began to despair of lighting on a
fitting one. Then she shifted her gaze from the landscape through the
window, and turned to where Mrs. Ray sat in her chair close by. How
vague and vacant was the look in those dear eyes! how mute hung the
lips that were wont to say, "God bless you!" how motionless lay the
fingers that once spun with the old wheel so deftly!

The old spinning-wheel--here it was, and Rotha's right hand still
rested upon it. Ah! the wheel--surely _that_ was, the sign she wanted.

She would sit and spin--yes, she could spin, too, though it was long
since she had done so--she would sit in his mother's chair--the one
his mother used to sit in when she spun--and perhaps he would
understand from that sign that she would try to take his mother's
place if he wished her so to do.

Quick, let it be done at once. He usually came up to the house at this
time of the morning.

She looked at the clock. He would be here soon, she thought; he might
be coming now.

* * * * *

And Willy Ray was, in truth, only a few yards from the house at the
moment. He had been up on to the hills that morning. He had been there
on a similar errand several mornings before, and had never told
himself frankly what that errand really was. Returning homewards on
this occasion, he had revolved afresh the subject