"That is why."
The two looked at each other. A fierce anger and lust of revenge burned in the heart of the shepherd. To Nial everything was simply a horrible, incomprehensible mystery. But Murdo knew something, perhaps more than anyone else, of what had lain between Torcall Cameron and Anabal Gilchrist; whatever the outcast knew, or vaguely surmised, was too deep down in his mind now to swim up into remembrance.
It was Nial who broke the silence.
"What of Alan?"
"The curse is upon him too—to the Stones be it said!"
"He will be far up on the north side of Tornideon ... or with Sorcha on Iolair."
"The woman must have fled. Or ... ah, for sure, that thought was never coming to me. Nial, my man, you never thought o' that, did you? You never thought that perhaps there were two bodies down there in the pool! Ay, for sure, for sure: Màm-Gorm was not the man to die alone!"
"Perhaps ... Murdo, perhaps it was ... perhaps it was ... he who...."
The words failed. The gaunt shepherd looked down at the speaker, frowning darkly.
"May be, may be," he muttered at last. "If I thought that, I would be letting him lie in his own house. Nial, see that no word o' this gets upon your lips if you meet anyone. No one must think that. No one in the Strath must think an evil thing o' Màm-Gorm."