"Are you gaun to steal the very name frae the puir bairn?" was sufficient to keep her awake. Once more she found herself in a maelstrom of doubt. Wearied out, the first blink of dawn rising clear and lucent over the dark sea seemed to her a godsend. She crept out of her bed leaving the child asleep, and, dressing herself, wrapped a cloak about her, and so seating herself on a rock at the very edge of the cliff within earshot of the cottage where she lodged, set herself once more to watch the peaceful coming of light, which had so often brought her wisdom. So had it looked that dawning when she and Duke--ah! always, always she and Duke! How curiously Fate had joined them. Yet she had disregarded Fate's handiwork even while she had told herself she had been aiding it. Far over in the east the light was growing. So it had grown that morning when she and Duke swam---- She seemed to feel his arm on her shoulders, the touch of her arm on his neck, the cold kiss of the bitter sea stinging soul and body to new joyous life. She saw his happy face alight with laughter. "Look! Isn't it worth it?" Yes, it had been worth it, well worth it! And even as on that distant June morning while she looked, the restless dark horizon of the sea seemed to melt and soften, and the path of radiant gold sent by the first ray of the rising sun seemed to touch her feet and bring her answer-- Yes, life was well worth it indeed! Who was she to cavil at what Fate had done? Who was she to worry over what she thought she had done? Comprehension came to her, she saw a clear and ordered sequence in which even her mistakes bore their fitting fruit. Life seemed to hold no cares, no errors, no animosities. What was it Duke had said about taking too much wine that night? "I shan't do it again, but I shouldn't have had this perfectly stunning time if I hadn't, should I?" So it was in her life. She had had joy through her mistakes. She and her Love had been alone in the Great Sea of Time battling with the waves as best they could. Nothing else mattered. They might be waifs on that sea, but they were together. She slipped to her knees and watched the sun rise. Over how many mistakes, how many wasted minutes and opportunities and lives! Wasted? No--not wasted. Even mistakes had their appointed place. Even the old man who had made the castle over yonder a spider's-web of evil was part of the Great Plan. Slowly the light grew. The cottages below in the tiny fishing village began to send up thin blue threads of smoke. The figure of a man or a woman began to pass along the narrow causeway. And someone came up the steps towards her cottage, then paused, seeing her. "Ye'll be Mistress Marsden likely," he said, "for I've no seen ye before. There's a saxpence tae pay, but ye can gie it to the lassie for me till I come back." The postman handed her a letter as he spoke and went on his way, for his round was a long one.