I hope that I shall not be found.  If I am, let this answer for me.  I was unhappy, more unhappy than you can think.  Let no one be blamed.  It was one far from here and you will not know his name.  Do not think of me as wicked nor as a murderess.  The unhappy should have pardon and rest.  Good-by to all—­good-by!

In the upper corner was written, “For White Farm.”  That was all.

Glenfernie put this letter into the bosom of his shirt.  He then got on again the clothing he had discarded, and, stooping, put his arms beneath the lifeless form.  He lifted it and bore it from the Kelpie’s Pool and up the moor.  He was a man much stronger than the ordinary; he carried it as though he felt no weight.  The icy water of the pool upon him was as nothing, and as he walked his face was still as a stone face in a desert.  So he came with Elspeth’s body back to the glen, and Mother Binning saw him coming.

“Hech, sirs!  Hech, sirs!  Will it hae been that way—­will it hae been that way?”

He stopped for a moment.  He laid his burden down upon the boards just within the door and smoothed back the streaming hair.  “Even the shell flung out by the ocean is beautiful!”

“Eh, man!  Eh, man!  It’s wae sometimes to be a woman!”

“Give me,” he said, “a plaid, dry and warm, to hap her in.”

“Will ye na leave her here?  Put her in my bed and gae tell White Farm!”

“No, I will carry her home.”

Mother Binning took from a chest a gray plaid.  He lifted again the dead woman, and she happed the plaid about her.  “Ah, the lassie—­the lassie!  Come to me, Glenfernie, and I will scry for you who it was!”

He looked at her as though he did not hear her.  He lifted the body, holding it against his shoulder like a child, and went forth.  He knew the path so absolutely, he was so strong and light of foot, that he went without difficulty through the glen, by the loud crying water, by the points of crag and the curving roots and the drifts of snow, by the green patches of moss and the trees great and small.  He did not hasten nor drag, he did not think.  He went like a bronze Talus, made simply to find, to carry home.

Known feature after known feature of the place rose before him, passed him, fell away.  Here was the arm of the glen, and here was the pebbled cape and the thorn-tree.  The winter water swirled around it, sang of cold and a hateful power.  Here was the mouth of the glen.  Here were the fields which had been green and then golden with ripe corn.  Here were the White Farm roof and chimneys and windows, and blue smoke from the chimney going straight up like a wraith to meet blue sky.  Before him was the open door.