She went past the boulder on the path that hid the clachan from view, and within a net-throw of which was the byre of Mrs. Maclean's cottage, where, since her father's death, she had dwelt. A tall, gaunt, elderly woman, with hair of the ivory white of the snowberry, was about to pass from behind the byre with a burthen of fresh bracken for Ian Maclean's bed--for the old islesman abode by the way of his fathers, and was content to sleep on a deerskin spread upon fresh-gathered fern--when she caught sight of Lora. She stopped, and with an eager glance looked at the girl: then beyond, and finally seaward, with her long, thin, brown arm at an angle, and her hand curved over her eyes against the glare of the water. Silence was about her as a garment. Every motion of her, even, suggested a deep calm. Mrs. Maclean spoke seldom, and when she said aught it was in a low voice, sweet and serene, but as though it came from a distance and in the twilight. She was of the shadow, as the islesmen say; and strangers thought her to be austere in look and manner, though that was only because she gazed long before she replied to one foreign to her and her life: having the Gaelic, too, so much more natively than the English, that oftentimes she had to translate the one speech into the other nearer to her: that, and also because the quiet of the sea was upon her, as often with hill-folk there is a hushed voice and mien. Lora knew what was in her mind when she saw her gaze go seaward and then sweep hither and thither like a hawk ere it settles. "The boat is not yet in sight, Mary; she is late," she said simply: adding immediately, "I have come back to go up Cnoc-an-Iolair; from there I'll see the smoke of the _Clansman_ sooner. She is often as late as this." Mrs. Maclean looked compassionately at the girl. "Mayhap the _Clansman_ will not be coming this way at all to-night, Lora. She may be going by Kyle-na-Sith." A flush came into Lora's face. Her eyes darkened, as a tarn under rain. "And for why should she not be sailing this way to-night, when Alastair is coming home, and is to be here before sundown?" "He may have been unable to leave. If he does not come to-day, he will doubtless be here to-morrow." "To-morrow! O Mary, Mary, have you ever loved, that you can speak like that? Think what Alastair went away for! Surely you do not know how the pain is at my heart?" "Truly, _mùirnean_. But it is not well to be sure of that which may easily happen otherwise." "To-morrow, indeed! Why, Mary, if the _Clansman_ does not come by this evening, and has gone as you say by Kyle-na-Sith, she will not be here again till the day _after_ to-morrow!" "Alastair could come by the other way, by the Inverary boat, and thence by the herring-steamer from Dunmore, after he had reached it from Uan Point or by way of Craig-Sionnach." "That may be, of course; but I think not. I cannot believe the boat will not be here to-night."