At night Hector MacNairn and his mother and I sat on the terrace under stars which seemed listening things, and we three drew nearer to one another, and nearer and nearer.

“When the poor mother stumbled into the train that day,” was one of the things Hector told me, “I was thinking of The Fear and of my own mother.  You looked so slight and small as you sat in your corner that I thought at first you were almost a child.  Then a far look in your eyes made me begin to watch you.  You were so sorry for the poor woman that you could not look away from her, and something in your face touched and puzzled me.  You leaned forward suddenly and put out your hand protectingly as she stepped down on to the platform.

“That night when you spoke quite naturally of the child, never doubting that I had seen it, I suddenly began to suspect.  Because of The Fear”—­he hesitated—­“I had been reading and thinking many things new to me.  I did not know what I believed.  But you spoke so simply, and I knew you were speaking the truth.  Then you spoke just as naturally of Wee Brown Elspeth.  That startled me because not long before I had been told the tale in the Highlands by a fine old story-teller who is the head of his clan.  I saw you had never heard the story before.  And yet you were telling me that you had played with the child.”

“He came home and told me about you,” Mrs. MacNairn said.  “His fear of The Fear was more for me than for himself.  He knew that if he brought you to me, you who are more complete than we are, clearer-eyed and nearer, nearer, I should begin to feel that he was not going—­out.  I should begin to feel a reality and nearness myself.  Ah, Ysobel!  How we have clung to you and loved you!  And then that wonderful afternoon!  I saw no girl with her hand through Mr. Le Breton’s arm; Hector saw none.  But you saw her.  She was there!”

“Yes, she was there,” I answered.  “She was there, smiling up at him.  I wish he could have known.”

What does it matter if this seems a strange story?  To some it will mean something; to some it will mean nothing.  To those it has a meaning for it will open wide windows into the light and lift heavy loads.  That would be quite enough, even if the rest thought it only the weird fancy of a queer girl who had lived alone and given rein to her silliest imaginings.  I wanted to tell it, howsoever poorly and ineffectively it was done.  Since I knew I have dropped the load of ages—­the black burden.  Out on the hillside my feet did not even feel the grass, and yet I was standing, not floating.  I had no wings or crown.  I was only Ysobel out on the hillside, free!

This is the way it all ended.

For three weeks that were like heaven we three lived together at Muircarrie.  We saw every beauty and shared every joy of sun and dew and love and tender understanding.

After one lovely day we had spent on the moor in a quiet dream of joy almost strange in its perfectness, we came back to the castle; and, because the sunset was of such unearthly radiance and changing wonder we sat on the terrace until the last soft touch of gold had died out and left the pure, still, clear, long summer twilight.