We must forget it.

We must forget Tavish." And then, as if he had omitted a fact of some importance, he added: "I will kneel at his graveside before we go." "If he had only waited," said David, scarcely knowing what words he was speaking, "if he had waited until to-morrow, only, or the next day...." "Yes; if he had waited!" The Missioner's eyes narrowed.

David heard the click of his jaws as he dropped his head so that his face was hidden.
"If he had waited," he repeated, after David, "if he had only waited!" And his hands, spread out fan-like ever the stove, closed slowly and rigidly as if gripping at the throat of something.
"I have friends up in that country he came from," David forced himself to say, "and I had hoped he would be able to tell me something about them.

He must have known them, or heard of them." "Undoubtedly," said the Missioner, still looking at the top of the stove, and unclenching his fingers as slowly as he had drawn them together, "but he is dead." There was a note of finality in his voice, a sudden forcefulness of meaning as he raised his head and looked at David.
"Dead," he repeated, "and buried.

We are no longer privileged even to guess at what he might have said.