His wife knew
better, but even she dared not approach Macdonald Dubh on that subject,
which had not been mentioned between them since the morning he had
opened his heart to her. The dark, haggard, gloomy face haunted her. She
longed to help him to peace. It was this that sent her to his brother,
Macdonald Bhain, to whom she told as much of the story as she thought
wise.

"I am afraid he will never come to peace with God until he comes to
peace with this man," she said, sadly, "and it is a bitter load that he
is carrying with him."

"I will talk with him," answered Macdonald Bhain, and at the end of the
week he took his way across to his brother's home.

He found him down in the brule, where he spent most of his days toiling
hard with his ax, in spite of the earnest entreaties of Ranald. He was
butting a big tree that the fire had laid prone, but the ax was falling
with the stroke of a weak man.

As he finished his cut, his brother called to him, "That is no work for
you, Hugh; that is no work for a man who has been for six weeks in his
bed."

"It is work that must be done, however," Black Hugh answered, bitterly.

"Give me the ax," said Macdonald Bhain. He mounted the tree as his
brother stepped down, and swung his ax deep into the wood with a mighty
blow. Then he remembered, and stopped. He would not add to his brother's
bitterness by an exhibition of his mighty, unshaken strength. He stuck
the ax into the log, and standing up, looked over the brule. "It is a
fine bit of ground, Hugh, and will raise a good crop of potatoes."

"Aye," said Macdonald Dubh, sadly. "It has lain like this for three
years, and ought to have been cleared long ago, if I had been doing my
duty."

"Indeed, it will burn all the better for that," said his brother,
cheerfully. "And as for the potatoes, there is a bit of my clearing that
Ranald might as well use."

But Black Hugh shook his head. "Ranald will use no man's clearing but
his own," he said. "I am afraid he has got too much of his father in him
for his own good."

Macdonald Bhain glanced at his brother's face with a look of mingled
pity and admiration. "Ah," he said, "Hugh, it's a proud man you are.
Macdonalds have plenty of that, whatever, and we come by it good enough.
Do you remember at home, when our father"--and he went off into a
reminiscence of their boyhood days, talking in gentle, kindly, loving
tones, till the shadow began to lift from his brother's face, and he,
to