At the end of the third month after that disastrous day when Alan Carmichael knew that his father had been slain, and before his unknowing eyes, by Tristran de Kerival, a great terror came upon him.
On that day itself he had left the Manor of Kerival. With all that blood between him and his enemy he could not stay a moment longer in the house. To have done so would have been to show himself callous indeed to the memory of his father.
Nor could he see Ynys. He could not look at her, innocent as she was. She was her father's child, and her father had murdered his father. Surely a union would be against nature; he must fly while he had the strength.
When, however, he had gained the yew close he turned, hesitated, and then slowly walked northward to where the long brown dunes lay in a golden glow over against the pale blue of the sea. There, bewildered, wrought almost to madness, he moved to and fro, unable to realize all that had happened, and with bitter words cursing the malign fate which had overtaken him.
The afternoon waned, and he was still there, uncertain as ever, still confused, baffled, mentally blind.
Then suddenly he saw the figure of Yann the Dumb, his friend and clansman, Ian Macdonald. The old man seemed to understand at once that, after what had happened, Alan Carmichael would never go back to Kerival.
"Why do you come to see me here, Ian?" Alan had asked wearily.
When Ian began, "Thiginn gu d'choimhead ... I would come to see you, though your home were a rock-cave," the familiar sound of the Gaelic did more than any thing else to clear his mind of the shadows which overlay it.
"Yes, Alan MacAlasdair," Ian answered, in response to an eager question, "whatever I know is yours now, since Lois nic Choinneach is dead, poor lady; though, sure, it is the best thing she could be having now, that death."