And he had put every dollar of the few he had saved into this stock and borrowed some besides! And worse than that; this honest old fellow Jess, out of good will to him had put five hundred in and persuaded others to invest also!
Suspicion is like sailing in a fog; we cannot tell where clear air ends and fog begins, only the first we know the air seems damp and chill, the sun obscured and danger near. And so with Winn, there on Rockhaven, with his vocation and paths in life all mapped out, these people looking toward him as a benefactor and ready to trust him with their money and the sun of success shining! And all at once the air seemed chill with the fog of deceit and fraud, and he knew not where he was. To refuse those who would buy more stock, he dare not, since it would awaken suspicion; to accept it was as bad, for it compromised him the deeper. For a long hour he tried to think a way for himself out of this fog, and the more he thought the more positive his suspicion grew, and then he returned to his abode. And there in Rock Lane and as if to increase his burden of responsibility, was Mona sitting in the porch of her humble home alone.
"Why, little girl," he said softly, pausing at the gate, "are you not abed and asleep?"
And Mona, unconscious of how or in what way it would strike him, and in the utter innocence of her heart, came quickly out to where he was standing.
"I was lonesome," she said simply, "and waiting for you to come back. I saw you go up the hill and wondered what for." And Winn, despondent and worried as he was, and looking down into the sweet face and earnest eyes upraised to him, felt their tender sympathy wondrously sweet.
"I went up there to think," he said, "and to be alone. It is a way I have when business troubles me." And bidding her "good night" he left her.
For a few weeks Winn worried over the suspicions of Weston & Hill's honesty that seemed like a cloud of danger, and then, to a certain extent, it passed away. To no one, not even Jess, did he dare confide them, but just drifted on, day by day, doing the duty he was paid to do. Each week came his pay-roll and salary remittance, and an assuring and pleasant letter from the firm. It also contained a request or hope that he would not forget to sell stock when he could. This latter, however, made no impression on Winn. Collectively, he had sold about one thousand shares to these islanders, and that he felt was enough. In fact, believing, as he had almost come to do, that the entire scheme was a gigantic swindle, it was certainly all he intended to sell, and more than he wished he had sold. Then there was another matter of serious interest, and that was Mona.