ry, and
it told him of her brother who was in prison, and asked him to visit him
and to be kind to him, as he had been to her. But after it was written
she was afraid to send it.

No. She must wait and have patience. Willie must go away alone over
the sea, as they had agreed together in the only letters that had passed
between them since he was a prisoner. Mr Hadden would befriend him as
he had promised, and she would follow him when the right time came.

"But it is ill waiting," said Allison to herself. "It is ill waiting."

In those days many a word came to her as she sat in the kirk or in the
parlour at worship-time, which set her thinking. Some of them
strengthened her courage and gave her hope, and some of them made her
afraid. For she said to herself:

"Are these good words for me?"

They we're for the minister and for the minister's wife, doubtless,
every promise of them all, and for many more who heard them spoken. But
were they for her?

"For," said she, "`if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not
hear my prayer.' And I'm no' sure of myself. `Love your enemies,' the
Book says, and I doubt there's hatred in my heart to one man.

"Or maybe it is only fear of him and anger. I think if I could only get
well away from him, and safe from the dread of him, I would hate him no
longer. I would pity him. I pity him now, even. For he has spoiled
his own life as well as mine, and what with anger and shame, and the
pity of some folk and the scorn of others, he must be an unhappy man.
Yes, I _am_ sorry for him. For the fault was partly mine. I should
have stood fast whatever befell. And how is it all to end?"

CHAPTER TWELVE.

"A man may _choose_ to _begin_ love, but not to end it."

The spring passed quickly and summer came on, and then something
happened which made a little stir of pleasure in the manse, and in the
pleasure Allison shared, because of little Marjorie. Mrs Esselmont
came home.

Mrs Esselmont had been, in former days, one of the great ladies of the
shire, and, with a difference, she was one of its great ladies still.
Marjorie had been "kirstened after her," as they used to call it in that
country. The child was "Marjorie Esselmont Hume," and she was right
proud of her name.

But Mrs Esselmont did not come back this time to Esselmont House, which
had been the home of the Esselmonts for many a year and day. Her
husband was dead and her sons also, and the great