She felt an impulse to rise and hurry to the work at once. She felt it a sin to lose a moment. Yet all the difficulties rose up before her. What steps to take--what to do! "Miss Anne," said Esther; "I have pondered it, and ower again pondered it in my ain mind since I came hame frae that weary journey, and often I have been on the point of gaun away back again, to see if I could hear onything mair. But what I would bid ye do, would be to gang, or to get some of thae keen writer chiels to gang, cannily, without letting on what they want, to do their endeavor to find out if onybody else in that countryside had an ill-will at Mr. Aytoun: he was a wild man, I heard, and nae doubt had enemies--and if ony other man had been seen leaving the wood that awful morning bye Mr. Norman. There's been a lang time lost, but I've thought often, it might maybe put the real sinner aff his guard, and so he micht be easier found. Miss Anne, that is the way, sae far as I can see. Ye maun try and find the true man that did it, living or dead." "And bring disgrace and ruin into some other peaceful family, Esther," said Anne, sadly. "It is a terrible alternative!" "Miss Anne," said Esther, "my dear laddie Norman maun be saved, if I should gang away mysel. I aye waited for you. I had no thought ye wad falter. The work is a sore and painful work, but if ye will not do it, that have better power, I will try myself." "I had no thought of faltering, Esther," said Anne. "I only said it was a very sad and terrible alternative, and so it is--if William was correct--if we are to endeavor to prove the guilt of one whom Norman was willing to sacrifice name and fame for, it is only so much the more painful. Yet I do not falter--you say truly, Norman must be saved--if it is within human power to clear his name, he shall be saved. But, oh! for guidance--for wisdom!" When Anne left the house, Esther accompanied her to the door, earnestly urging upon her the necessity of losing no time. To lose no time!--no, surely; when, for all Alice Aytoun's sunny lifetime, Norman had been an outcast and an exile. And the "Marion!"--who was this who had not deserted him in the midnight of his calamity? this who had been bolder amidst the perils of the wreck than he, and who had gone with him to the unknown far country, the outcast's wife? Anne's imagination no longer pictured him alone, abroad beneath sweeping blast and tempest. A calmer air stole over the picture. It might be from some humble toiling home--not bright, yet with a chastened sunshine of hope and patience about it still--that the tidings of restored honor and fortune should call the exile, and the exile's household, rejoicing to their own land. CHAPTER XII.