The girl raised her eyes and looked at him. It was getting dark, and the burn was beginning its night-song. Ishbel noticed that, and remembered just how the water used to sing, quite suddenly. The lovely, indescribable breath of the muir wind swept in their faces. How sweet it was--how entrancing! And oh! me, the velvety deeps of her eyes, the little half-sad, half-humorous mouth! Was she married? Was she? He repeated the question, but with a new and eager ring in his voice, and Ishbel shook her head. "Though there will have been a good many marriages since you left. There was Mari MacLean and Dougal Nicolson, and there was Colin----" "What about MacLeod, your cousin?" "He is to be married this year," she said, "to an English lass." "So you did not marry him, after all, Ishbel?" "Who said that I would?" she cried, as if stung. "You knew better than that! Who said that I would?" "He did; and that you would go with him that night, if he asked you. And you did, Ishbel! It was very cruel, but----" Rory paused then, and suddenly spoke in Gaelic, as if it all came back to him. "But I am beginning to think that I was cruel, too. Was I?" He waited, watching her. Ishbel nodded gently. She also spoke in Gaelic, as if they had parted only yesterday. "Yes, you were cruel, Rory, and you were very hasty. It is true that I was a foolish lass, but you might have given me another chance. I believed in my grandmother's stories. I wanted to see the good folk." She looked away, and sadness and disillusion crept over her face. "But I do not believe in them any more, not any more." "Poor little Ishbel. Poor wee lassie!" It could not be five years. It could not! They had only parted yesterday! "But it does not matter," Ishbel said, rousing, "and now perhaps you will call and see my grandmother? Are you on your way to Uig?" He did not answer that. "Ishbel," he said, "I was very cruel, and I was just as angry as a man could be, and for five years I have been mad and sore; but deep down, deep down, I never forgot you. I hated him, but I loved you. I will come and see your grandmother; but--first--first, will you give me a kiss, Ishbel, for the sake of the old days?" Would she? Perhaps, after all, he did not wait for her consent. He had her in his arms, and they closed round her, and Isabel's head fell on his shoulder with a little sob that was an epitome of all the five years' sorrow and heartache. [Illustration: Catriona heard his story in silence.] "_Muirnean_ (darling)," Rory whispered, "I love you; and when I leave Skye, you will come too, or I will be staying on here with you. You shall choose Ishbel--you shall choose; and to-morrow I will buy you something better than the claymore brooch that I was cruel enough to throw away!"