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.
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.
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."
"Lora? Lora is dead! She is a beautiful spirit, and sleeps in that pool under the rowan. She walked with me last night in the moonshine. She has a beautiful child that is our child. It is now a song, singing in the sunshine. I heard it at dawn, when I was listening to the stars calling one to another. It is a song of joy about the doorway of Pharais. I saw the golden doors open a brief while ago--the doors of Pharais. Our little child danced in the glory as a mote in a sunbeam. But Lora is dead."