r his coming was late, as usual. She asked no questions. It
was well with him, that was enough for her. As he rose to go, she said:

"I hope you have good news for Allison Bain." Then John sat down again.

There was not much to tell. John had not seen the man himself. He had
been set at liberty before his time was out. As to what sort of a man
he was, John had been told that after a month or two, when he had been
first wild with anger and shame, and then sullen and indifferent, a
change had come over him. A friend had come to visit him more than
once, and had encouraged him to bear his trouble patiently, and had
given him hope. But he had never spoken about himself or his affairs to
any one else. The chances were he had gone home to his own place; but
nothing, which his informant could repeat, had been heard from him since
he went away.

"Poor Allison Bain!" said Mrs Beaton with a sigh.

"Surely it will be good news to her that he has been free all the summer
days, and in his own house," said John.

"Yes, but of her he can ken nothing. And he must go to America, if he
should go, with only a vague hope of some time seeing her on the other
side of the sea. And she kens his weak will, and must fear for him.
She will likely be here in the Sabbath gloaming to hear what ye have to
tell."

But it was otherwise ordered. John rose early, as was his custom,
intent on getting all the good from the country air which could be got
in a single day. It was a fair morning, clear and still. Only a
pleasant sound of birds and breeze was to be heard. There was no one
visible in the street. Most of the tired workers of the place were wont
to honour the day of rest by "a lang lie in the mornin'," and the doors
and windows of the houses were still closed. While he stood hesitating
as to the direction he should take, out of the manse close sedately and
slowly walked Fleckie and her companions, each dragging the long chain
by which she was to be tethered; and after them limped cripple Sandy,
whose Sunday duty at all times it was to see them safely afield.

John did not quicken his steps to overtake him, as he had now and then
done at such times, for the sake of getting the news of all that had
happened while he was away. He turned and went down the green, and
round by the lane and the high hedge which sheltered the manse garden,
and giving himself no time to hesitate as to the wisdom of his
intention, stopped at last a