Having once settled this point, her spirits experienced a complete elevation.  What should the sign be?  Rotha walked to the neuk window and stood to think, her hand on the wheel and her eyes towards the south.  What, then, should the sign be?

It was by no means easy to hit on a sign that would show him at a glance that her mind was made up; that, however she may have wavered in her purpose yesterday, her resolve was fixed to-day.  She stood long and thought of many plans, but none harmonized with her mood.

“Why should I not tell him—­just in a word?” Often as she put if to herself so, she shrank from the ordeal involved.

No, she must hit on a sign, but she began to despair of lighting on a fitting one.  Then she shifted her gaze from the landscape through the window, and turned to where Mrs. Ray sat in her chair close by.  How vague and vacant was the look in those dear eyes! how mute hung the lips that were wont to say, “God bless you!” how motionless lay the fingers that once spun with the old wheel so deftly!

The old spinning-wheel—­here it was, and Rotha’s right hand still rested upon it.  Ah! the wheel—­surely that was, the sign she wanted.

She would sit and spin—­yes, she could spin, too, though it was long since she had done so—­she would sit in his mother’s chair—­the one his mother used to sit in when she spun—­and perhaps he would understand from that sign that she would try to take his mother’s place if he wished her so to do.

Quick, let it be done at once.  He usually came up to the house at this time of the morning.

She looked at the clock.  He would be here soon, she thought; he might be coming now.

* * * * *

And Willy Ray was, in truth, only a few yards from the house at the moment.  He had been up on to the hills that morning.  He had been there on a similar errand several mornings before, and had never told himself frankly what that errand really was.  Returning homewards on this occasion, he had revolved afresh the subject that lay nearest to his heart.

If Ralph really loved the girl—­but how should he know the truth as to that, unless Rotha knew it?  If the girl loved his brother, he could relinquish her.  He was conscious of no pang of what was called jealousy in this matter.  An idol that he had worshipped seemed to be shattered—­that was all.

If he saw that Rotha loved Ralph, he must give up forever his one dream of happiness—­and there an end.

It was in this mood that he opened the kitchen door, just as Rotha had put her foot on the treadle and taken the flax in her hand.

There the girl sat, side by side with his mother, spinning at the wheel which within his recollection no hand but one had touched.  How fresh and fair the young face looked, tinged, as it was at this moment, too, with a conscious blush!

Rotha had tried to lift her eyes as Willy entered.  She intended to meet his glance with a smile.  She wished to catch the significance of his expression.  But the lids were heavier than lead that kept her gaze fixed on the “rock” and flax below her.