With a strange look in her eyes, she reproved herself for her nervous folly. She sat down, with gaze resolutely fixed on the glowing peats: nor would she have stirred again, but for a sound as of a low moan. The blood ran chill in her veins; her mouth twitched; and the intertwisted fingers of her hands were white and lifeless with the fierce grip that came of her fear. But she was not a woman to be mastered by terror. With a quivering sigh she rose, looked round the room, forced herself to stare fixedly at the window, and then moved quietly to the door. As soon as she felt the air upon her brows she became calm, and all dread left her. "Is that you, Ian?" she whispered. There was no one visible; no sound. "Is that you, Alastair Macleod?" So low was the utterance that, if any one had been there, he could scarce have heard it. To her strained ears it was as though she heard a light susurrus of brushed dew: but it might be a wandering breath of air among the gale, or an adder moving through the grass, or a fern-owl hawking under the rowan-trees. She waited a little; then, with a sigh of relief, re-entered the cottage and closed the door. A glance at Lora showed her that the girl was sleeping unperturbed. For some time there after she sat by the fire, brooding over many things. Weary, at last, she rose, cast a farewell glance at the sleeper, and then slipped quietly to her bed in the adjoining room. Night lay passively upon the sea, upon the isle, upon the clachan. Not a light lingered in any cottage, save the fire-glow in that of Mary Maclean: a hollow, attenuating beam that stared through the dark unwaveringly. Neither star nor moon was visible. The clouds hung low, but without imminence of rain for the isles, drawn inland as the vapours were by the foreheads of the bens. An hour later the door of the cottage opened and closed again, silently. It was Lora who came forth. She walked hesitatingly at first, and then more swiftly, not pausing till she reached the little boulder-pier. There she stood motionless, listening intently. The water lapped among the hollows, above which the ebb-left shellfish gaped thirstily. There was a lift among the dulse-heaps, as though a finger stirred them and let loose their keen salt smells. The bladder-wrack moved with strange noises, sometimes startlingly loud, oftenest as if sea-things were being stifled or strangled. From the promontory came a cry: abrupt, strident--the hunger-note of a skua. The thin pipe of the dotterel fell into the darkness beyond the shallows where the sea-mist lay. In the Kyle a muffled, stertorous breath, near and twice as far away, told that two whales were in the wake of the mackerel.