palace for them both. But they
went up towards the abandoned hut, glad enough, both of them, to see an
edifice, even in decay, showing man had once been there, where now the
world about seemed given over to vacant sunshine or the wild winds of
heaven, the rains, and doleful birds. It stood between two lochs that
were separated from each other by but a hundred yards of heather and
rush, its back-end to one of the lochs, the door to Ben Bhreac.

Gilian went first and trod down the nettles, making a path that she
might the more comfortably reach this sanctuary so melancholy. She
gathered up her gown close round her, dreading the touch of these kind
plants that hide the shame of fallen lintels and the sorrow of cold
hearths, and timidly went to the door, her shawl fallen from one of her
shoulders and dragging at the other. She put her head within, and as she
did so, the lad caught the shawl, unseen by her, and kissed the fringe,
wishing he could do so to her lips.

A cold damp air was in the dwelling, that had no light but from the half
open door and the vent in the middle of the roof.

She drew back shuddering in spite of herself, though her whole desire
was to seem content with any refuge now that she had brought him so far
on what looked like a gowk's errand.

He ventured an assuring arm around her waist and they went slowly
in together, and stood silent in the middle of the floor where the
long-dead fire had been, saying nothing at all till their eyes had grown
accustomed to the gloom.

What she felt beyond timidity she betrayed not, but Gilian peopled the
house at an instant with all its bygone tenants, seeing the peats ruddy
on the stones, the smoke curling up among the shining cabars, hearing
ghosts gossiping in muffled Gaelic round the fire.

Yet soon they found even in this relic of old long-gone people the air
of domesticity; it was like a shelter even though so poor a one; it
was some sort of an end to her quest for a refuge, though the more she
looked at its dim interior the more content she was with the outside
of it. Where doubtless many children had played, on the knowe below a
single shrub of fir-wood beside the loch, Nan spread out the remains of
her breakfast again and they prepared to make a meal. Gilian gathered
the dry heather tufts, happy in his usefulness, thinking her quite
content too, while all the time she was puzzling as to what was next to
be done. Never seemed a bleak piece of country so