One day, at the end of the following August, when most of the towns-people--men and women--had gone to the moss to cut the winter's peat, she saw Geordie Twatt coming toward the house. Something about his appearance troubled her, and she went to the open door and stood waiting for him. "What is it, Geordie?" "I am bidden to tell thee, Margaret Sinclair, to be at the Stanes o' Stennis to-night at eleven o'clock." "Who trysts me there, Geordie, at such an hour?" "Thy brother; but thou'lt come--yes, thou wilt." Margaret's very lips turned white as she answered: "I'll be there--see thou art, too." "Sure as death! If naebody spiers after me, thou needna say I was here at a', thou needna." Margaret understood the caution, and nodded her head. She could not speak, and all day long she wandered about like a soul in a restless dream. Fortunately, every one was weary at night, and went early to rest, and she found little difficulty in getting outside the town without notice; and one of the ponies on the common took her speedily across the moor. Late as it was, twilight lingered over the silent moor, with its old Pictish mounds and burial places, giving them an indescribable aspect of something weird and eerie. No one could have been insensible to the mournful, brooding light and the unearthly stillness, and Margaret was trembling with a supernatural terror as she stood amid the solemn circle of gray stones and looked over the lake of Stennis and the low, brown hills of Harray. From behind one of these gigantic pillars Ronald came toward her--Ronald, and yet not Ronald. He was dressed as a common sailor, and otherwise shamefully disguised. There was no time to soften things--he told his miserable story in a few plain words: "His business had become so entangled that he knew not which way to turn, and, sick of the whole affair, he had taken a passage for Australia, and then forged a note on the Western Bank for £900. He had hoped to be far at sea with his ill-gotten money before the fraud was discovered, but suspicion had gathered around him so quickly, that he had not even dared to claim his passage. Then he fled north, and, fortunately, discovering Geordie's boat at Wick, had easily prevailed on him to put off at once with him." What cowards sin makes of us! Margaret had seen this very lad face death often, among the sunken rocks and cruel surfs, that he might save the life of a ship-wrecked sailor, and now, rather than meet the creditors whom he had wronged, he had committed a robbery and was flying from the gallows. She was shocked and stunned, and stood speechless, wringing her hands and moaning pitifully. Her brother grew impatient. Often the first result of a bitter sense of sin is to make the sinner peevish and irritable.