Both stood motionless, with their hands shading their eyes, and looking across the wide Sound, where the tide bubbled and foamed against the slight easterly wind-drift. The late sunlight fell full upon them, working its miracle of gold here and there, and making the skin like a flower. The outline of each figure stood out darkly clear as against a screen of amber. For a time neither spoke. At last, with a faint sigh, Mrs. Maclean turned. "Did you see Ian on your way, _Lora-mo-ghràidh_?" "No." "Do not have speech with the old man to-night, dear one. He is not himself." "Has he had the sight again?" "Ay, Lora." Again a silence fell. The girl stood moodily, with her eyes on the ground: the elder watched her with a steadfast, questioning look. "Mary!" Mrs. Maclean made no reply, but her eyes brought Lora's there with the answer that was in them. "Ian has never had the sight again upon ... upon Alastair, has he?" "How can I say?" "But do you know if he has? If you do not tell me, I will ask him." "I asked him that only yester-morning. He shook his head." "Do you believe he can foresee all that is to happen?" "No. Those who have the vision do not read all that is in the future. Only God knows. They can see the thing of peril, ay, and the evil of accident, and even Death--and what is more, the nearness and sometimes the way of it. But no man sees more than this--unless, indeed, he has been to Tir-na-h'Oigh." Mrs. Maclean spoke the last words almost in a whisper, and as though she said them in a dream. "Unless he has been to Tir-na-h'Oigh, Mary?" "So it is said. Our people believe that the Land of Eternal Youth lies far yonder across the sea; but Aodh, the poet, is right when he tells us that that land is lapped by no green waves such as we know here, and that those who go thither do so in sleep, or in vision, or when God has filled with dusk the house of the brain." "And when a man has been to Tir-na-h'Oigh in sleep, or in dream, or in mind-dark, does he see there what shall soon happen here?" "It is said." "Has Ian been beyond the West?" "No." "Then what he sees when he has the sight upon him is not _beannaichte_: is not a thing out of heaven?" "I cannot say. I think not." "Mary, is it the truth you are now telling me?" A troubled expression came into the woman's face, but she did not answer. "And is it the truth, Mary, that Ian has not had the sight upon Alastair since he went away--that he did not have it last night or this morning?" Lora leaned forward in her anxiety. She saw that in her companion's eyes which gave her the fear. But the next moment Mrs. Maclean smiled. "I too have the sight, _Lora-mo-ghràidh_; and shall I be telling you that which it will be giving you joy to hear?" "Ay, surely, Mary!" "Then I think you will soon be in the arms of him you love"--and, with a low laugh, she pointed across the sea to where a film of blue-grey smoke rose over the ridge of Dunmore headland.