No: there was no mistake. Blent with the gurgle and cluck and whisper of the water among the lifted bladder-wrack and in and out of the pools and crannies in the rocks, there was the piteous sound of a human sob. All at once, everything became clear to Lora. She knew that Alastair was near: she did not even dread that he was present as a disembodied spirit. He had reached the isle after all, but in some strange sorrow had not sought her straightway. "_Alastair!_" she cried yearningly. No one answered; no one stirred; nothing moved. But the muffled sobbing was hushed. "Alastair! Alastair!" Slowly from a sand-drift beside the ferry-rock a tall figure arose. For a few moments it stood motionless, black against the yellow shine of the moon. The face was pale; that of a man, young, with the thin lips, the shadowy eyes that in sunlight would shine sea-blue, the high oval features, the tangled, curly, yellow-tawny hair of the islesmen of the ancient Suderöer, in whose veins the Celtic and the Scandinavian strains commingle. Alastair was as visible as though he were in the noon-light. Lora looked at him, speechless. She saw that in his strained eyes, in his wrought features, which told her he had drunken of sorrow. His dishevelled hair, his whole mien and appearance showed that he was in some dire extremity. "_Alastair!_" He heard the low, passionate appeal, but at first he did not stir. Then, and yet as though constrainedly and in weariness, he raised and stretched forth his arms. Swift as a gliding shadow, Lora was beside him, and clasped to his heart. For a time, neither spoke. His heart beat loud and heavily: against his breast her head lay, with her breath coming and going like a wounded bird panting in the green-gloom of the thicket. "O Alastair, Alastair, what is it?" she murmured at last, raising her head and looking into his pale, distraught face. "What made you come out in the dark, _Lora-mùirnean_?" "I could not rest. I was too unhappy. I thought--I thought--no, I do not think I dared to believe that you might come to-night after all; but something made me long to go down to the sea. Did you see me only now, dear heart?" "No, Lora." For a moment she was still, while she gazed fixedly at Alastair. "Ah," she whispered at last, "then you have been here all this night, and I not knowing it! Ah, Alùinn, it was _your_ heart crying to mine that made me rise and leave the cottage and come out into the dark. But why did you not come to me? When did you come to Innisròn? How did you come?"