s, remained unchanged in
his relations with her, unless it was that in his deep and understanding
sympathy he brought her greater spiritual and mental comfort than ever.
The other neighbors were kind always, in their rough, well-meaning way;
but he was her chief guide and comforter, and in him, and the books
which Donald conscientiously sent to her every few weeks, she found the
strength to carry forward.

So, in the never-ending tasks which her daily life provided, and which
she performed with distress in her heart, but a smile on her lips, Rose
saw the weeks come and go, bringing in their slow-moving, but
inexorable, train, autumn, fall and another winter.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ADDED BURDEN

It was mid-winter. The twilight sky--cold and pale, more green than
blue--brought the thought of new-made ice. Stripped long since of their
verdure, the wooded Cumberlands lay, like naked, shivering giants,
across whose mighty recumbent torsos the biting winds swept
relentlessly.

In contrast with the desolation without, inside Big Jerry's cabin all
was as bright, warm and homelike as a merry fire, the soft glow of the
evening lamp and the presence of the heart of the spot--the girl
herself--could make it.

Thankful for the blessings of the cheery home and her grandfather's
presence in it still, and softly humming an old ballad which he loved,
Rose was busily engaged in preparing an early supper, when she was
interrupted by the sound of a low, uncertain knock on the door.

She opened it, wonderingly, and the firelight leaped out into the night
and disclosed the unshaven face and gaunt form of Judd.

Save on rare occasions, and then at a distance, she had not seen him
since that fateful day on the mountain's summit, when his passionate
love and hate, intermingled, had driven him to commit the great offence
against the unwritten laws of the feudal clan, by attacking one upon
whom the sacred mantle of hospitality had been placed, by which act he
had incurred Jerry's enmity, and made himself love's outlaw.

The months had dealt harshly with him. Not only was his clothing frayed
and soiled; but his face was so unnaturally pale that the deep-set eyes
beneath their lowering black brows seemed to burn like embers, and there
were many new lines on his countenance not graven there by wind and
weather.

Shocked at the change in him, and suddenly filled with womanly
compassion which sounded the knell of anger, Rose called,