his Mr. Hector MacNairn is
no common man. He is one who is great and wise enough to decide things
plain people could not be sure of. Jean and I are glad indeed that he
and his mother are coming. Jean can talk to her and I can talk to him,
being a man body. They will tell us whether we have been right or wrong
and what we must do."

"They are wise enough to tell you anything," I answered. "It sounds
as if you and Jean had known some big secret all my life. But I am not
frightened. You two would go to your graves hiding it if it would hurt
me."

"Eh, bairn!" he said, suddenly, in a queer, moved way. "Eh, bairn!" And
he took hold of both my hands and kissed them, pressing them quite
long and emotionally to his lips. But he said nothing else, and when he
dropped them I went out of the room.

CHAPTER IX

It was wonderful when Mr. MacNairn and his mother came. It was even
more beautiful than I had thought it would be. They arrived late in
the afternoon, and when I took them out upon the terrace the sun was
reddening the moor, and even the rough, gray towers of the castle
were stained rose-color. There was that lovely evening sound of birds
twittering before they went to sleep in the ivy. The glimpses of gardens
below seemed like glimpses of rich tapestries set with jewels. And there
was such stillness! When we drew our three chairs in a little group
together and looked out on it all, I felt as if we were almost in
heaven.

"Yes! yes!" Hector said, looking slowly--round; "it is all here."

"Yes," his mother added, in her lovely, lovely voice. "It is what made
you Ysobel."

It was so angelic of them to feel it all in that deep, quiet way, and to
think that it was part of me and I a part of it. The climbing moon was
trembling with beauty. Tender evening airs quivered in the heather and
fern, and the late birds called like spirits.

Ever since the night when Mrs. MacNairn had held me in her arms under
the apple-tree while the nightingale sang I had felt toward her son as
if he were an archangel walking on the earth. Perhaps my thoughts were
exaggerated, but it seemed so marvelous that he should be moving among
us, doing his work, seeing and talking to his friends, and yet that he
should know that at any moment the great change might come and he might
awaken somewhere else, in quite another place. If he had been like other
men and I had been like other girls, I suppose that after that night
when I heard the truth I