"O Alastair, if it be God's will?"
"Ay, and if it be God's will?"
"I cannot lose you; you will always be mine; no sorrow can part us; nothing can separate us; nothing but the Passing, and that ..."
"Lora!"
For answer she looked into his eyes.
"Lora, it is of that, of the Passing: ... are you ... are you brave enough not only to endure ... but to ... if we thought it well ... if I asked you...?"
A deep silence fell upon both. Hardly did either breathe. By some strange vagary of the strained mind, Lora thought the throb of her heart against her side was like the pulse of the engines of the Clansman to which she had listened with such intent expectation that very evening.
From the darkness to the north came the low monotone of the sea, as a muffled voice prophesying through the gates of Sleep and Death. Far to the east the tide-race tore through the Sound with a confused muttering of haste and tumult. Upon the isle the wind moved as a thing in pain, or idly weary: lifting now from cranny to corrie, and through glen and hollow, and among the birk-shaws and the rowans, with long sighs and whispers where by Uisghe-dhu the valley of moonflowers sloped to the sea on the west, or among the reeds, and the gale, and the salt grasses around the clachan that lay duskily still on the little brae above the haven.
"Lora ... would you ... would...?"
Only her caught breath at intervals gave answer. The short lisp and gurgle of the water in the sea-weed close by came nearer. The tide was on the flood, and the sand about their feet was already damp.