"Well, to be brief, I agreed. My kinsman Alasdair was away at the time. He returned on the eve of the very day on which I was suddenly married by Father Somerled Macdonald. We were to remain a few weeks in Borosay because of my mother's health.
"When Alasdair learned what had happened he was furious. I believe he even drew a riding whip across the face of Tristran de Kerival. Fierce words passed between them, and a cruel taunt that rankled. Nor would Alasdair have any word with me at all. He sent me a bitter message, but the bitterest word he could send was that which came to me: that he and my sister Silis had gone away together.
"From that day I never saw Silis again, till the time of her death. Soon afterward our mother died, and while the island-funeral was being arranged our father had a stroke, and himself died, in time to be buried along with his wife. It was only then that I realized how more than true had been his statements as to his ruin. He died penniless. I was reminded of this unpleasant fact at the time, by the Marquis de Kerival; and I have had ample opportunity since for bearing it in vivid remembrance.
"As soon as possible we settled all that could be settled, and left for Brittany. I have sometimes thought my husband's love was killed when he discovered that Alasdair had loved me. He forbade me even to mention his name, unless he introduced it; and he was wont to swear that a day would come when he would repay in full what he believed to be the damning insult he had received.
"We took with us only one person from Borosay, an islander of Rona. He is, in fact, a clansman both of you and me. It is of Ian I speak, of course; him that soon came to be called here Yann the Dumb. My husband and I had at least this to unite us: that we were both Celtic, and had all our racial sympathies in common.
"I heard from Silis that she was married and was happy. I am afraid this did not add to my happiness. She wrote to me, too, when she was about to bear her child. Strangely enough, Alasdair, who, like his father before him, was an officer in the French army, was then stationed not far from Kerival, though my husband knew nothing of this at first. My own boy and Silis's were born about the same time. My child died; that of Silis and Alasdair lived. You are that child. No ... wait, Alan ... I will tell you his name shortly.... You, I say, are that child. Soon afterward, Silis had a dangerous relapse. In her delirium she said some wild things; among them, words to the effect that the child which had died was hers, and that the survivor was mine—that, somehow or other, they had been changed. Then, too, she cried out in her waywardness—and, poor girl, she must have known then that Alasdair had loved me before he loved her—that the child who lived, he who had been christened Alan, was the child of Alasdair and myself.
"All this poor delirium at the gate of death meant nothing. But in some way it came to Tristran's ears, and he believed. After Silis's death I had brought you home, Alan, and had announced that I would adopt you. I promised Silis this, in her last hour, when she was in her right mind again; also that the child, you, should be brought up to speak and think in our own ancient language, and that in all ways you should grow up a true Gael. I have done my best, Alan?"
"Indeed, indeed you have. I shall never, never forget that you have been my mother to me."
"Well, my husband never forgave that. He acquiesced, but he never forgave. For long, and I fear to this day, he persists in his belief that you are really my illegitimate child, and that Silis was right in thinking that I had succeeded in having my own new-born babe transferred to her arms, while her dead offspring was brought to me, and, as my own, interred. It has created a bitter feud, and that is why he hates the sight of you. That, too, Alan, is why he would never consent to your marriage with either Ynys or Annaik."
"But you yourself urged me a little ago to ... to ... marry Annaik."