rading for years, and knew Maggie's story as well as
any Islander. But he had seen beyond the mirk of the sin the woman's
soul pure as a pearl.

Maggie could not believe that any man, least of all a man like
Alister, wanted to marry her. 'I am a wicked woman,' she said with hot
blushes, 'and you must marry a good woman.'

'I mean to marry a good woman, my lass,' he said, 'the best woman I
know. And that is your bonny self.' Maggie hesitated. He smoothed back
her hair with a fond proprietary touch. 'We'll give the boy a name,'
he said, 'and before God, none will ever know he's not my own boy.'

That settled it. Jack was a big lad of six now, and would soon begin
to understand things, and perhaps ask for his father. It opened before
her like an incredible exquisite happiness that perhaps he need never
know her sin. She put her hand into Alister's and accepted him in a
passion of sobbing that was half joy, half sorrow.

The brothers were all in favour of the marriage. They loved her too
much not to want her to have a fair chance in a new life. Here on the
Island, though she were a saint, she would still be a penitent. It
came hardest on Tom,--for Larry was soon to bring home a wife of his
own, but neither man talked much of what he felt. They put aside their
personal sorrow and were glad for Maggie and her boy.

But Maggie's mother was consistent to the last. No brazen and
flaunting sinner could have seemed to her more a lost creature than
the girl who had been so dutiful a daughter, so loving a sister, so
perfect a mother, all those years. Tom told her the news. 'I wash my
hands of her,' she said. 'Let her take her shame under an honest man's
roof if she will. I wish her neither joy nor sorrow of it.' And more
gentle words than these Tom could not bring her to say.

So Maggie was married, the old woman preserving her stony silence and
apparent unconcern. She only spoke once,--the day the girl was made a
wife. It was one of her bad days, and she had to lie down after an
attack of her heart. Maggie dressed to go to the church and meet her
bridegroom. She was not to return to the cottage, and her modest
little luggage and little Jack's were already aboard the Glasgow brig.
At the last, hoping for some sign of softening, the girl went into the
dim room where her mother lay, ashen-cheeked. The mother turned round
on her her dim eyes. 'What do you want of me?' she asked, breaking the
silence of years. The girl helplessly