They went to Portree, and found an eight-oared boat there, with seven rowers in it. Rupert went on board, took his place at the eighth oar. And again, as far away in Uist--and years ago, it seemed--he watched the Prince and Miss MacDonald foregathered on the shore. In Uist they had met, these two, under a driving wind that blew across the tempered radiance of the June night hours. Here they were standing in hot daylight, with never a breeze to ruffle the happy face of land and sea. And yet they had been glad in Uist, with the storm about them; and here in Skye they stood, and looked at one another, and were empty of all hope. They had spent few days together, as time is reckoned, the Prince and Miss MacDonald of the isles. But the days they shared had been packed full of hardship, danger of pursuing soldiery, peril of their warm, human liking for each other--the human liking that gains depth and strength from trouble. The Prince had gone through a Scotland set thick with women who asked a love-lock, a glance, and all that follows. He had kept troth instead with the stubborn march of men who followed the open road with him. Women came before and after strife--that had been his gospel, until he met Miss MacDonald, good to look at, and brave to rescue him. And now they stood together on the shore of Portree Bay. They were Prince and loyal subject, and yet they were children crying in the dark, needing each other, heart-sick at parting, ready, if their faith had been a little weaker, to catch at the coward’s proverb that the world is well lost for a love forbidden. To these two, parting on the edge of Portree Bay, there came a sudden intuition of the soul. They saw--almost as if it stood between them--a sword, keen-edged, and clean, and silvery--the sword that had guarded them safely through worse dangers than gunboats and the stormy seas. They saw the days behind--the few days granted them for comradeship--the years stretching out and out ahead, empty and steep and wind-swept as the lone hill-tracks of Skye. The rowers waited, impatient to be off, because each moment lost was packed with danger. But these two would never again fear any sort of hazard; they had gained too much, were losing too much. Their glances met. One was taking the high road trod by the bleeding feet of royalty; the other was taking the low road, that led to the house of Kingsborough, its maddening, quiet routine of housewifery--mending of the laird’s stockings, seeing that Mrs. MacDonald’s fowls were tended, going, day by day, and year by year, through the sick, meaningless routine of housework.