They were half-way down toward the shore when Mrs. Maclean, holding up a warning hand, stopped. "What is it, Mary?" Lora whispered. "Do you see anything? Do you see him?" "Look!" and, as she spoke, Mary pointed to a dip in the little glen. Under a rowan, heavy with clusters of fruit, as yet of a ruddy brown touched here and there with crimson, a white figure stooped, leaning over one of the pools wherein the falling burn slept and dreamed awhile ere it leaped again from ledge to ledge, or slipped laughing and whispering through time-worn channels. He was like some beautiful creature of an antique tale. Even as a wild deer, he stooped and drank; looked questioningly through the rowans and birches, and then across the bracken where the sun-rays slid intricately in a golden tangle; then, stooping again, again drank. The sunlight was warm about him. His shoulders and back gleamed ivory-white, dusked flickering here and there with leaf-shadows. A shadowy green-gloom lay upon his curved breast and against his thighs, from the sheen of the water passing upward through the dense fern that overhung the stream. "It is the young god," thought Mary; "the young god who, Seumas the Seer says, was born of human hope, weaned with human tears, taught by dreams and memories, and therewith given for his body, Beauty ... and for his soul, Immortal Joy." But aloud she murmured only, "It is he--the Beautiful One--of the _Domhan Tòir!"_ Lora did not look at her; but below her breath whispered, "_It is Alastair_." * * * * * Swiftly and silently, they moved forward. So intent was Alastair, after he had quenched his thirst, upon what he saw or imagined in the pool beneath him, that he did not hear their steps till they were but a few yards away. "_Alastair!_" He lifted his head and listened. "_Alastair!_" The sudden fear passed from his eyes. A smile came into them, and his lips parted: "Lora ... Lora bhàn ... Lora, my beautiful gloom ... my fawn ... my little one...." As he spoke, with low, caressing, yearning voice, he looked into the heart of the pool again, and stretched forward his arms longingly. A sob behind him fell upon his ears. Startled, he sprang back. For more than a minute, he looked intently at Lora and Mrs. Maclean. Then, slowly, some reminiscence worked in his brain. Slowly, too, the dark veil began to lift from his mind; slightly, and for a brief while at most. "Mary!" Mrs. Maclean made a step toward him, but stopped. The peace that was about her at all times breathed from her, and lay upon him. The benediction of her eyes upheld him. Quietly she spoke, with her right hand pointing to the sobbing woman at her side. "Alastair ... this is Lora, who has sought you far, and now has found you."