in Ireland
were those that had been buried there.

That finished, he left the victorious Fianna and returned swiftly to the
plain of Allen, for he could not bear to be one unnecessary day parted
from Saeve.

"You are not leaving us!" exclaimed Goll mac Morna.

"I must go," Fionn replied.

"You will not desert the victory feast," Conan reproached him.

"Stay with us, Chief," Caelte begged.

"What is a feast without Fionn?" they complained.

But he would not stay.

"By my hand," he cried, "I must go. She will be looking for me from the
window."

"That will happen indeed," Goll admitted.

"That will happen," cried Fionn. "And when she sees me far out on the
plain, she will run through the great gate to meet me."

"It would be the queer wife would neglect that run," Cona'n growled.

"I shall hold her hand again," Fionn entrusted to Caelte's ear.

"You will do that, surely."

"I shall look into her face," his lord insisted. But he saw that not
even beloved Caelte understood the meaning of that, and he knew sadly
and yet proudly that what he meant could not be explained by any one and
could not be comprehended by any one.

"You are in love, dear heart," said Caelte.

"In love he is," Cona'n grumbled. "A cordial for women, a disease for
men, a state of wretchedness."

"Wretched in truth," the Chief murmured. "Love makes us poor We have not
eyes enough to see all that is to be seen, nor hands enough to seize the
tenth of all we want. When I look in her eyes I am tormented because I
am not looking at her lips, and when I see her lips my soul cries out,
'Look at her eyes, look at her eyes.'"

"That is how it happens," said Goll rememberingly.

"That way and no other," Caelte agreed.

And the champions looked backwards in time on these lips and those, and
knew their Chief would go.

When Fionn came in sight of the great keep his blood and his feet
quickened, and now and again he waved a spear in the air.

"She does not see me yet," he thought mournfully.

"She cannot see me yet," he amended, reproaching himself.

But his mind was troubled, for he thought also, or he felt without
thinking, that had the positions been changed he would have seen her at
twice the distance.

"She thinks I have been unable to get away from the battle, or that I
was forced to remain for the feast."

And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been changed
he would have known that nothing could retain the