m top to bottom, and flung
it on the table, and in an instant was walking out of the room.

CHAPTER IV.

Paul Ritson returned to the stack-yard, and worked vigorously three
hours longer. A stack had been stripped by a recent storm, and he
thatched it afresh with the help of a laborer and a boy. Then he stepped
indoors, changed his clothes, and filled a traveling-bag. When this was
done he went in search of the stableman. Natt was in his stable,
whistling as he polished his harness.

"Bring the trap round to the front at seven," he said, "and put my bag
in at the back; you'll find it in the hall."

By this time the night had closed in, and the young moon showed faintly
over the head of Hindscarth. The wind was rising.

Paul returned to the house, ate, drank, and smoked. Then he rose and
walked upstairs and knocked at the door of his mother's room.

Mrs. Ritson was alone. A lamp burned on the table and cast a sharp white
light on her face. The face was worn and very pale. Lines were plowed
deep on it. She was kneeling, but she rose as Paul entered. He bent his
head and kissed her forehead. There was a book before her; a rosary was
in her hand. The room was without fire. It was chill and cheerless, and
only sparsely furnished--sheep-skin rugs on the floor, texts on the
walls, a carved oak clothes-chest in one corner, two square high-backed
chairs and a small table, a bed, and no more.

"I'm going off, mother," said Paul; "the train leaves in an hour."

"When do you return?" said Mrs. Ritson.

"Let me see--this is Saturday; I shall be back on Wednesday evening."

"God be with you!" she said in a fervent voice.

"Mother, I spoke to Greta last night, and she promised. We shall soon be
free of this tyranny. Already the first link of the chain is broken. He
called me into his room this morning to sign a mortgage on the Ghyll,
and I refused."

"And yet you are about to go away and leave everything in his hands!"

Mrs. Ritson sat down and Paul put his hand tenderly on her head.

"Better that than to have it wrested from me inch by inch--to hold the
shadow of an inheritance while he grasps the substance. He knows all.
His dark hints are not needed to tell me that."

"Yet he is silent," said Mrs. Ritson, and her eyes fell on to her book.
"And surely it is for my sake that he is so--if in truth he knows all.
Is he not my son? And is not my honor his honor?"

Paul shook his head.

"If the honor of twenty m