onesty!" he cried, clenching his hands, "selfishness and
dishonesty! Those are the commonest things in this world--the only
things!"

He picked up his lantern, and turning his back on his astonished
visitor, disappeared into the dark recess of the engine-room.

The young doctor stood staring after him, undecided whether to follow
or not. Was the man mad? There was a wild gleam in his eye, but
Gilbert's professional knowledge told him it was rather a gleam of
anguish than insanity. He took a step forward, then turned and walked
away, wondering, and hotly indignant. He was filled with rage that any
man should dare to speak to him so, and wished with all his heart that
John McIntyre's hair had not been so white, nor his shoulders so
stooped and thin.

But with his amazement and indignation there was struggling a new
feeling. The May night was cool, but he felt suffocatingly hot. He
shrugged his shoulders. Nonsense! The man certainly was mad. How
could any sane person accuse him of leaving his best friend to starve?
And yet--

A figure in white was coming down the village street. It was the
princess of the ravine. She was dressed as suited her now, in a long,
white, filmy gown, which she held up daintily. She wore no hat, and
the bronze hair crowning her shapely head caught the sunset light and
shone like gold.

She spoke to him, with a stately sweetness that recognized their
previous acquaintance, but invited no further advance. The deep,
searching look in her eyes, the same as in her old uncle's, made
Gilbert feel uncomfortable. It seemed as if she knew, and every one
knew, that he had been guilty of "selfishness and dishonesty."

He did not worry long over the strange man and his stranger accusation,
for his fortune took a sudden happy turn.

Down on the Lake Simcoe road, about a couple of miles below the
village, lived old Mrs. McKitterick, the mother of Conductor Lauchie.
For years she had been an invalid, and a great sufferer, and poor
Lauchie had spent half his earnings on doctors' bills; but still she
lay in her bed weary month after weary month. They called in the new
doctor, and he tried a new form of treatment, a simple operation, and
before a month was gone the old lady walked to the barnyard gate and
waved her shawl at Lauchie's train as it came puffing out of the swamp.
And the conductor blew her such a joyous salute that folks thought
there must be an accident, and Jake Sawyer stopped