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. The calm, truthful, believing, almost for the moment
enthusiastic, expression of the young fisherman's face wrought upon
her with a strangely quieting influence. It was as if one spoke to
her out of a region of existence of which she had never even heard,
but in whose reality she was compelled to believe because of the
sound of the voice that came from it.

Malcolm seldom made the mistake of stamping into the earth any
seeds of truth he might cast on it: he knew when to say no more,