She would have put out her hand through the darkness to find him, but the chain checked it. He heard the rattle of it, and understood.
“Chained too, my dove!” he said, but in Gaelic.
His weakness was over. He thanked God, and took courage. New life rushed through every vein. He rose to his feet in conscious strength.
“Can you strike a light, and let me see you, Donal?” said Arctura.
Then first she called him by his Christian name: it had been so often in her heart if not on her lips that night!
The dim light wasted the darkness of the long buried place, and for a moment they looked at each other. She was not so changed as Donal had feared to find her—hardly so changed to him as he was to her. Terrible as had been her trial, it had not lasted long, and had been succeeded by a heavenly joy. She was paler than usual, yet there was a rosy flush over her beautiful face. Her hand was stretched towards him, its wrist clasped by the rusty ring, and tightening the chain that held it to the post.
“How pale and tired you look!” she said.
“I am a little tired,” he answered. “I came almost without stopping. My mother sent me. She said I must come, but she did not tell me why.”
“It was God sent you,” said Arctura.
Then she briefly told him what she knew of her own story.