But how could these doubts of Sheila’s sincerity last? He sat opposite her in the wagonette, and the perfect truth of her face, of her frank eyes and of her ready smile met him at every moment, whether he talked to her or to Ingram, or listened to old Mackenzie, who turned from time to time from the driving of the horses to inform the stranger of what he saw around him. It was the most brilliant of mornings. The sun burned on the white road, on the green moorland, on the gray lichened rocks with their crimson patches of heather. As they drove by the curious convolutions of this rugged coast the sea that lay beyond these recurring bays and points was of a windy green, with here and there a streak of white, and the fresh breeze blowing across to them tempered the fierce heat of the sun. How cool, too, were those little fresh-water lakes they passed, the clear blue and white of them stirred into wavelets that moved the reeds and left air-bubbles about the half-submerged stones! Were not those wild geese over there, flapping in the water with their huge wings and taking no notice of the passing strangers? Lavender had never seen this lonely coast in times of gloom, with those little lakes becoming sombre pools, and the outline of the rocks beyond lost in the driving mist of the sea and the rain. It was altogether a bright and beautiful world he had got into, and there was in it but one woman, beautiful beyond his dreams. To doubt her was to doubt all women. When he looked at her he forgot the caution and distrust and sardonic self-complacency his Southern training had given him. He believed, and the world seemed to be filled with a new light. “That is Loch-na-Muil’ne,” Mackenzie was saying, “and it iss the Loch of the Mill; and over there, that is Loch-a-Bhaile, and that iss the Loch of the Town; but where iss the loch and the town now? It wass many hundreds of years before there will be numbers of people in this place; and you will come to Dun Charlobhaidh, which is a great castle, by and by. And what wass it will drive away the people, and leave the land to the moss, but that there wass no one to look after them? ‘When the natives will leave Islay, farewell to the peace of Scotland.’ That iss a good proverb. And if they have no one to mind them, they will go away altogether. And there is no people more obedient than the people of the Highlands--not anywhere; for you know that we say: ‘Is it the truth, as if you were speaking before kings?’ And now, there is the castle, and there wass many people living here when they could build that.”