He saw its turrets rising from among the trees as he turned his horse's head from the pleasant threshold of Woodsmuir, to which he now paid his first visit. These fair slopes and hollows, the brown moor running far northward, the gray hills in the distance, with the red glory of the frosty January sunlight on their bare, uncovered heads. What were they now to him? What? Dearer, more precious than ever; the aim to which he looked forward through a dim vista of hard-working years; a prize to be won; a goal to be attained; a treasure to be brought by his own toil! Was there no sickening of the heart, as the young man, born and nurtured in that proud old house of Strathoran, the heir of all its inherited honors, looked forward to the lifetime of toil that lay before him, obscure, ignoble, unceasing? The office in Glasgow where he should be put on trial, and have the strange new experience of unknown masters, on whose favor depended all his prospects; the still more dim and unknown counting-house of Buenos Ayres, with its exile and estrangement from home-looks and language. Was not his heart sickening within him? No! Who that has felt his pulses quicken, and his heart beat, at the anticipation of a clear and honorable future, filled only with unencumbered labor, a healthful frame, a sound mind, and a great aim in view, could ask that question? Sickness, deadly and painful, overpowered Archibald Sutherland's heart when he looked _behind_; that wild lee-shore of weakness, those fierce rocks of temptation and passion upon which his fortune and his honor had made disastrous shipwreck. These are the things to sicken hearts and crush them, not the bracing chill air that swept the path to which he began to bind his breast. The hill was steep, the way long, rough, laborious. What matter? There was hope, and mental health, and moral safety in his toils; a definite aim at its summit; an All-guiding Providence, giving strength to the toiler, and promising a blessing upon every righteous effort, to uphold and bear him on. The cloud that had passed over that little, blue-eyed, gentle girl at the Tower--the new interest which occupied the mind of Mrs. Catherine, were known to Archibald in some degree, and interested him deeply. But the great secret--that Norman lived yet to be toiled, and hoped, and prayed for--was not communicated to either Archibald or Alice. They knew only that their friends believed him unjustly accused, and intended to labor for proof of that--proof which might be difficult enough to find, after the lapse of so many years--but the fact of the engagement between Lewis and Alice, was quite sufficient to account for the suddenly awakened anxiety concerning Norman's innocence.