"
Florimel gave him a strange, half startled look. Hardly more than
once since her father's funeral had she heard him alluded to, and
now this fisher lad spoke of him as if he were still at Lossie
House.
Malcolm understood the look.
"Ye mean, my leddy--I ken what ye mean," he said. "I canna help
it. For to lo'e onything is to ken't immortal. He's livin' to me,
my lady."
Florimel continued staring, and still said nothing.
I sometimes think that the present belief in mortality is nothing
but the almost universal although unsuspected unbelief in immortality
grown vocal and articulate.
But Malcolm gathered courage and went on,
"An' what for no, my leddy?" he said, floundering no more in
attempted English, but soaring on the clumsy wings of his mother
dialect. "Didna he turn his face to the licht afore he dee'd? an'
him 'at rase frae the deid said 'at whaever believed in him sud
never dee. Sae we maun believe 'at he's livin', for gien we dinna
believe what he says, what are we to believe, my leddy?"
Florimel continued yet a moment looking him fixedly in the face.
The thought did arise that perhaps he had lost his reason, but she
could not look at him thus and even imagine it. She remembered how
strange he had always been, and for a moment had a glimmering idea
that in this young man's friendship she possessed an incorruptible
treasure.
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