For they knew this: that they would awake in the fulness of time.
When, for the first time, the doom-word passed her lips, Alan shuddered slightly, but he did not quail.
"I am dying, dear heart!"
"Sorcha, this thing has been near to us many days. It is not for long."
"And thou wilt look to thine own dark hour with joy?"
"Even so."
"And our legacy to this our child ... shall be ... shall be...."
"It shall be Joy. He shall be, among men, Ivor the Joy-bringer."
No more was said between them, then, nor later.
It was in the afternoon of the day following this that Sorcha died. She was fain to breathe her last breath on the mountain-side. Tenderly, to the green hillock by the homestead, Alan had carried her. Soft was the west wind upon her wandering hands; warm the golden light out of the shining palaces of cloud whence that wind came.