"No."
"Tell him, Lois."
"Tristran, listen. All is over now. Soon I, too, shall be gone. In the name of God I pray you to relent from this long cruelty, this remorseless infamy. You know as well as I do that our first-born is dead twenty-five years ago, and that this man here is truly the son of Silis, my sister. And here is one overwhelming proof for you: I have just been urging him to marry Annaik."
At that Tristran the Silent was no longer silent. With a fierce laugh he turned to the steward.
"I call you to witness, Raif Kermorvan, that I would kill Annaik, or Ynys either for that matter, before I would allow such an unnatural union. Once and for all I absolutely ban it. Besides.... Listen, you there with your father's eyes! You are sufficiently a Gael to feel that you would not marry the daughter of a man who killed your father?"
"God forbid!"
"Well, then, God does forbid. Lois, tell this man what you know."
"Alan," began the Marquise quaveringly, her voice fluttering like a dying bird, "the name of your father is ... is ... Alasdair ... Alasdair Carmichael!"
"Carmichael!"
For a moment he was dazed, bewildered. When, recently, had he heard that name?