"Hush! Lora is not dead, but liveth. Lora is here. See, her tears run for you--her bosom heaves for you--her arms reach for you!"
Slowly the dreamer advanced. He would not come quite close at first, but there was a wonderful new light in his eyes.
"Alastair! Alastair! It is I, Lora! Come to me! Come to me!"
"If, indeed ... if, indeed, you are Lora ... Lora, my joy ... where is our child whose soul I heard singing in the sunshine over against Tigh-na-Pharais?"
Without a word, and swiftly, Lora took her poor blind blossom from Mary, and held the child toward him.
"It is God's gift to us, Alastair," she added at last, seeing that he came no nearer, and looked at the child wonderingly.
He advanced slowly, till his breath fell upon Lora's hands, and made her heart strain with its passion. Stopping, he stretched forth his right hand and gently touched the sleeping face. A sun-ray fell upon it. Then a smile grew upon the little parted lips, as the spirit of a flower might grow and bloom bodiless in dreamland.
Alastair smiled. With soft, caressing hand, he smoothed the child's face and little, uplifted arm. Then he took it gently from its mother, kissed it, handed it to Mary.
And having done this, he opened his arms and said one word: "Lora!"
None saw their return. Mrs. Maclean went before them with the child, and at once sent Ealasaid out to keep watch and ward against the coming of any one. Thereafter she swiftly made all ready for those whom God had lifted out of the grave.
But so weary was Alastair--so far spent by hunger, and fatigue, and exposure--that he could not put on the clothes laid ready for him. So Lora led him gently to bed; and there, after he had swallowed a little broth and warm milk, he fell into a profound sleep which lasted till dark, and then, after a brief interval wherein he ate ravenously, till late on the morrow.
From that time forth, Alastair's madness took a new form. All of dark gloom, of dread or vague fear, went from him. His reason seemed to be a living energy again, though still bewilderingly distraught at times, and ever veiled.
Nevertheless, that day of his awakening after his long, life-saving slumber was the last wherein the things of his past and the affairs of the present were realities to him. Concerning these, he could listen to little and speak less; and, again and again, his struggling thought became confused and his words incoherent.