friend, I believe you arc my true friend, and
there is no one else," she said, blushing now with no coquetry, and if
he had not been a fool and his fate against him, he might at a hand's
movement or a word have had her in his arms. The word to say was
sounding loud and strong within him; he took her (only, alas! in fancy)
to his breast, but what was she the wiser?

"And I can do nothing?" he said pitifully. "Nothing!" said she; "you
can do everything." "Show me how, then," he said eagerly. She had been
gazing away from him with her eyes on Maam, that looked so sombre a
home, and was certainly now so cruel a home, and she turned then, almost
weeping, her breath rising and falling, audible to his ear, the sweetest
of sounds.

"Will you take me away from here?" she asked in entreaty. "I must go
away from here."

"I will take you anywhere you wish," said he.

He held out his hands in a gesture of sudden offering, and she felt
a happiness as one who comes upon a familiar and kind face all
unexpectedly in a strange country. Her face betrayed her gladness.

"I will take you, and who would be better pleased?" said Gilian.

She explained her intention briefly. She must leave Maam at the latest
to-morrow night without being observed, and he must show her the way to
Elasaid's shealing.

"Ah! give me the right," he said, "and I will take you to the world's
end." He put out his hands and nigh encircled her, but shyness sent him
back to a calmer distance.

"John Hielan'man!" she repeated to herself, annoyed at this tardiness,
but she outwardly showed no knowledge of it.

They planned what only half in fun she called their elopement. He was to
come across to Maam in the early morning.

CHAPTER XXIX--THE ELOPEMENT

He had ideas of his own as to how this enterprise should be conducted,
but on Nan's advice he had gone about it in the fashion of Marget
Maclean's novels, even to the ladder. It was not a rope ladder, but a
common one of wood that Black Duncan was accustomed to use for ascent to
his sleep in the loft.

Gilian, apprised by Nan of its exact situation, crept breathlessly into
the barn, left his lantern at the door, and felt around with searching
fingers. The place was all silent but for the seaman's snores as he
slept the sleep of a landsman upon his coarse pallet. Outside a cock
crew; its sudden alarm brought the sweat to Gilian's brow; he clutched
with blind instinct, found what he wanted, turned and hast