“What more is there to tell than what is bound up in those three words 'She is gone'?” said the man. “The letter came to her grandfather and she saw him read it--I was in the hall--she saw his hand tremble. She stood up there beside him and asked him what was in the letter; he looked into her face and put the letter in her hand. I saw her face grow pale as she read it. Then she sat down for a minute, but no word or cry came from her until she looked up to the old man's face; then she clasped her hands and said only, 'I will go to him.' The old people talked to her of the distance, of the danger; they told her how she would be alone for days and nights among strangers; but she only repeated, 'I will go to him.' And now she is gone--gone alone over those waters.” “Alone!” Standish repeated. “Gone away alone, no friend near her, none to utter a word of comfort in her ears!” He buried his face in his hands as he pictured the girl whom he had loved silently, but with all his soul, since she had come to her home in Ireland from India where she had lived with her father since the death of his wife ten years ago. He pictured her sitting in her loneliness aboard the ship that was bearing her away to, perhaps, the land of her father's grave, and he felt that now at last all the bitterness that could be crowded upon his life had fallen on him. He gazed into the black tarn, and saw within its depths a star glittering as it glittered in the sky above, but it did not relieve his thoughts with any touch of its gold. He rose after a while and gave his hand to Murrough. “Thank you,” he said. “You have told me all better than any one else could have done. But did she not speak of me, Murrough--only once perhaps? Did she not send me one little word of farewell?” “She gave me this for you,” said the old bard, producing a letter which Standish clutched almost wildly. “Thank God, thank God!” he cried, hurrying away without another word. But after him swept the sound of the bard's lament which he commenced anew, with that query: Why art thou gone from us, Soul of all beauty and joy? It was not yet too dark outside the glen for Standish to read the letter which he had just received; and so soon as he found himself in sight of the sea he tore open the cover and read the few lines Daireen Gerald had written, with a tremulous hand, to say farewell to him. “My father has been left ill with fever at the Cape, and I know that he will recover only if I go to him. I am going away to-day, for the steamer will leave Southampton in four days, and I cannot be there in time unless I start at once. I thought you would not like me to go without saying good-bye, and God bless you, dear Standish.” “You will say good-bye to The Macnamara for me. I thought poor papa would be here to give you the advice you want. Pray to God that I may be in time to see him.” He read the lines by the gray light reflected from the sea--he read them until his eyes were dim.