"But tell me, Morag, who is the Herdsman of whom you speak?"
For a minute or more the woman stood regarding him intently. Then slowly, and as with difficulty, she spoke:
"Why have you appeared to the people upon the isle, sometimes by moonlight, sometimes by day or in the dusk? and have foretold upon one and all who dwell here black gloom and the red flame of sorrow?—Why have you, who are an outcast because of what lies between you and another, pretended to be an emissary of the Son—ay, for sure, even, God forgive you, to be the Son himself?"
Alan stared at the woman in blank amaze. For a time he could utter no word. Had some extraordinary delusion spread among the islanders, and was there in the insane accusation of this woman the secret of that inexplicable aversion which had so troubled him?
"This is all an empty darkness to me, Morag. Speak more plainly, woman. What is all this madness that you say? When have I uttered aught of having any mission, or of being other than I am? When have I foretold evil upon you or yours, or upon the isles beyond? What man has ever dared to say that Alan MacAlasdair of Rona is an outcast? and what sin is it that lies between me and another of which you know?"
It was impossible for Morag MacNeill to doubt the sincerity of the man who spoke to her. She crossed herself, and muttered the words of a sian for the protection of the soul against the demon powers. Still, even while she believed in Alan's sincerity, she could not reconcile it with that terrible and strange mystery with which rumor had filled her ears. So, having nothing to say in reply to his eager questions, she cast down her eyes and kept silence.
"Speak, Morag, for Heaven's sake! Speak if you are a true woman; you that see a man in sore pain, in pain, too, for that of which he knows nothing, and of the ill of which he is guiltless!"
But, keeping her face averted, the woman muttered simply: "I have no more to say." With that she turned and moved slowly along the pathway which led from the pool to her hillside bothie.
With a sigh, Alan turned and moved across the moor. What wonder, he thought, that deep gloom had been upon him that day? Here, in the woman's mysterious words, was the shadow of that shadow.