“My poor old carcass has always been in the way,” said Wullie wistfully, and she ran out of the hut, unable to bear the pity of that, right up on Ben Grief.  But before she reached the top she had to take off the tight bandages, for she found she could scarcely breathe, much less climb in them, and her shoes and stockings she hid under a bush until she came back, for they crippled her feet.

For three days she did not bathe and undressed in the dark every night.  But after that the water called her insistently, and she went back to it, swimming in a deliberately unconscious way, as though she had promised someone she would not notice herself any more.

But insensibly her dreams changed; instead of being a Deliverer now she dreamed, in spite of herself, of a Deliverer with whom she could go hand in hand; as the mild May days drew along to a hot June the dreams varied strangely.  Up on Ben Grief all alone in the wind, hungry and blown about she would see herself preaching in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey, clad in the roughest sheep-skins.  At home, or on Lashnagar, or in the water she saw herself like Britomart in armour—­always in armour—­while a knight rode at her side.  When they came to dragons or giants she was always a few paces in front—­she never troubled to question whether the knight objected to this arrangement or not.  At feasts in the palace, or when homage was being done by vast assembled throngs of rescued people, he and she were together, and together when they played.  She had definitely dismissed the doctor’s talk of natural weakness.  Not realizing all its implications she had nevertheless quite deliberately taken on the man’s part.

Then came a gipsy to the kitchen door one morning when Jean was in the byre.  It was a good thing Jean was not there or she would have driven her away as a spaewife.  She asked for water.  Marcella gave her oatcake and milk and stood looking at her olive skin, her flashing eyes, her bright shawl curiously.

As she drank and ate slowly she watched Marcella without a word.  At last she said in a hoarse voice: 

“You will go on strange roads.”

“I wish I could,” said Marcella, flushed with eagerness.  “This place is—­”

“You will go on strange roads and take the man you need,” said the gipsy again.

Marcella glimpsed her splendid knight riding in at the gate with her, and the farm-yard ceased to be muddy and dirty and decayed; it became a palace courtyard, with glittering courtiers thronging round.  It did not occur to her that the gipsy had heard the Lashcairn legend in the village—­the most natural thing for a legend-loving gipsy to hear—­she was accustomed to believing anything she was told, and that the gipsy’s words confirmed her own longings made them seem true.

“I’m afraid there’s not much chance of strange roads for me,” she said, looking out over the sea with beating heart to where a distant ribbon of smoke on the horizon showed a ship bound for far ports.