“She spent a night once in a haunted house, and there was a man there who carried his head in his hands. Fiona saw him, plain as day!” the eldest boy told Rutledge with great relish. “He was a Campbell, killed by a MacLaren, and seeking revenge.” He launched into the details of the feud, but his mother, smiling, said, “Yes, that’s all very well, but I don’t think Mr. Rutledge has time for the whole story.”

He spent a quarter of an hour with the children and Mrs. Davison but came away with nothing more. He needed no further reminder from Hamish to pass on Fiona’s message to the children. The shy little girl smiled and said “Fiona” in a soft voice. “Is she coming back?”

Her mother looked over her head at Rutledge and replied, “Not for a while, dear.”

MRS. KERR, OVER sixty and showing her years, told him what she knew of Mrs. Cook, but there was nothing new in what she had to say.

As he got up to leave, Rutledge asked, “Did Mrs. Cook and Miss MacDonald seem to be close?”

“Not close, no. They’d walk in the evenings sometimes. That was all.”

“Where did they walk most often, do you know?”

“Mrs. Cook wasn’t country bred, so they didn’t go far. About the town, mostly, or in the churchyard. It’s protected from the wind, I suppose that’s why. I had the feeling that they both felt comfortable among the graves. Odd thing to say, I know, but there you are. As if they drew strength or peace or the like from the quiet there . . . Fiona, now, I knew she’d lost the man she was to marry—she told me once that he was buried in France. Mrs. Cook’s husband was at sea. But she never spoke much about herself. At first I put it down to being too good for the likes of us in Brae, then I saw that she was not one to talk. Some folks aren’t, are they? It’s what makes the world go ’round, differences.”

RUTLEDGE CROSSED THE street from Mrs. Kerr’s and walked as far as the small, ugly church. The early Victorian brick and stone mixture had not been successful, but it stood apart, among great old trees planted generations before for an older church. There were paths among the graves, white graveled ribbons through the green, hum-mocked grass. A number of bare plots spoke of recent burials, and he shivered, remembering his own dream.

He went through the gate and spent some time moving through the wilderness of stone, reading the inscription on first this one and then another.

Not far from the rear wall one headstone caught his eye. It was old, the dates smudged and barely discernible, but the name carved deeply into the gray face was quite legible.

Hamish MacLeod.