tant shout, "I am clear of
it, I am a man again! Oh, it is good! it is good! Here, read the letter,
it will prove to you."

"Oh, what does it matter at all, Allan," she cried, still clinging to
him, "as if it made any difference to me. I always knew it."

Her brother lifted her face from his breast and looked into her eyes.
"Do you tell me you don't want to know the proof of it?" he asked in
wonder. "No," she said simply. "Why should I need any proof? I always
knew it."

For a moment longer he gazed upon her, then said, "Moira, you are a
wonder, lassie. No, you are a lassie no longer, you are a woman, and, do
you know, you are like mother to me now, and I never saw it."

She smiled up at him through her tears. "I should like to be," she said
softly. Then, because she was truly Scotch, she added, "for your sake,
for I love you terribly much; and I am going to lose you."

A quiver passed through her frame, and her arms gripped him tight. In
the self-absorption in his grief and pain he had not thought of hers,
nor considered how with his going her whole life would be changed.

"I have been a selfish brute," he muttered. "I have only thought of my
own suffering; but, listen Moira, it is all past; thank God, it is
all past. This letter from Mr. Rae holds a confession from Potts (poor
Potts! I am glad that Rae let him off): it was Potts who committed the
forgery. Now I feel myself clean again; you can't know what that is; to
be yourself again, and to be able to look all men in the face without
fear or shame. Come, we must go; I must see them all again. Let us to
the burn first, and put my face right."

A moment he stood looking down upon his mother's grave. The hideous
thing that had put her far from him, and that had blurred the clear
vision of her face, was gone. A smile soft and tender as a child's stole
over his face, and with that smile he turned away. As they were
coming back from the burn, Martin and the schoolmaster saw them in the
distance.

"Bless me, man, will you look at him?" said the master in an awestruck
tone, clutching Martin's arm. "What ever is come to him?"

"What's up," cried Martin. "By Jove! you're right! the Roderick Dhu and
Black Douglas business is gone, sure!"

"God bless my soul!" said Maclise in an undertone. "He is himself once
more."

He might well exclaim, for it was a new Allan that came striding up
the high road, with head lifted, and with the proud swing of a Highland
chieftain