“Yes. Thank you.” No other words would form, as he felt his throat tighten with emotion. They walked through the painted doorway, and into the shelter of stone.
In troubled dream Mary lay upon the bed, restlessly turning. Words and pictures of the day would appear to her, soft and lovely---riding through the magnificent countryside, feeling him close beside her---till with a start she felt again the claw-like hand upon her breast, and beheld the iron gaze which knew no entreaty. And shaking her head in torment, she would drive the images away.
After some time of this she half woke, though her eyes remained closed against the bitter truth of the waking world. She clutched the pillow to her like a lover, and in a moaning, despairing voice said his name.
“Oh, Michael. Where are you?”
Where are you? Where are you? The words resounded in her mind, growing fainter, spiralling through a dark tunnel which became a deep well, leading to the heart of the abyss. And like tiny pebbles they struck the water far below with the faintest echo of sound.
Something stirred, as if woken from a fearful and everlasting sleep.
She saw clearly, now level with her eyes, a dark and shallow pool among a copse of death-black trees, the whole of the scene shrouded by mist and lit by seeping moonlight. And in its midst, lying face downward with only his arched back protruding above the surface of those terrible waters, the figure of a Scottish soldier.
As if sensing her presence the figure lifted its head, bewildered, and stood up. A fearful, long-drawn wail split the night, whether from the spirit or from herself she could not have said, only that the face was that of her beloved, that he was in great pain, and had been struck blind. He turned wildly from side to side, trying to penetrate the blackness of his eyes. And the same words that she had sent to him now became his own, endlessly, hopelessly repeated.
“Where are you? Where are you? Where are you!”
She tried to answer but could not, as if between them they possessed but a single voice. And as he finally stopped thrashing, and she felt her tongue loosed, she became aware of the thing which had stilled him, so utterly that she knew he had lost all hope, confronted by the sinister, solitary figure which parted the mist and stood before him: her hated half-brother, who had stolen and crushed his heart.