Then she gathered the strength that was in her. With a fierce blow she made him reel, so that he nigh slipped and fell. "Murderer!" A blank silence came upon them. Around, the rush of the water: swift-sighing it seethed beyond, with hollow roar and surge in the linn below where they stood. Over the forest lay a faint yellow bloom: the moon shining upon it from behind Ben Iolair. A fern-owl churred its love-cry through the warm, fragrant night. A thin, impalpable mist obscured the few stars that shone, but the splintered lance-rays of them glistered this faint exhalation of the earth. When the man spoke, his voice was as though frozen. "It is a lie." "No lie is it, Torcall Cameron; for I see the naked truth in your soul." "It is a lie." "Where is my man, where is my man Fergus, whom you slew?" "I slew him not." "Liar! Liar! Even here, on this very spot, on this very night years agone, he came upon his death at your hand!" "Listen! I heard _you_: now, hearken to _me_.... On that night, but before it was dark, we met, here. It is true. True also that there was fear and hate between us. But as God hears me, as God sees me, as God hath stricken me blind and gloomed the bitter life of me, I did not put his death upon him!" "Anabal!" Her breath came hot against his face. "Anabal!" No word, no sign. He knew by the passage of her breath that she looked now this way and now that: behind him, beside, beyond. She saw that they were standing now on the extreme of the slippery ledge that overhung the seething depths. No longer did she make any attempt to resist him. Death called out of the pool. She made no effort to save either him or herself. "Anabal!" Mechanically she moved her arms as though to free herself. She felt his hold slacken. "Anabal! Do you yield?" "I yield." Mechanically, again, she leaned forward and kissed him on the breast. The next moment his foot slipped. He reeled, staggered wildly. Anabal snatched her arm away. Again he slipped and fell forward. He was now on the very edge of the ledge. His hand fell upon one of her feet. She stooped to push aside his arm. He raised it, caught at something, gave a wild cry, and shot into the dark, with heavy plunge and splash. In the moonshine--for the yellow bloom had now expanded into a flood of rippling gold--she saw the black mass of his body whirled to and fro. Once the white face was turned to her--a blank disc. Twice, thrice, she saw the black arms move above the seething caldron in a strange, fantastic dance. Then, in a moment, as from a bolt, the body was shot into the deep pool beyond the outer fang-like rocks of the Linn. Anabal Gilchrist turned, the foam on the water not more wan than her white face. With slow steps she regained the heathy ground. She did not look back once, then, nor as she clomb the long slope to her home. VII