They went slowly down between the high elder hedges, Pamela seated on her horse, Warrisden walking by her side. The wide level lowlands opened out beneath them--fields of brown and green, black woods with swinging boughs, and the broad high road with its white wood rails. A thin mist swirled across the face of the country in the wind, so that its every feature was softened and magnified. It loomed dim and strangely distant, with a glamour upon it like a place of old romance. To Pamela and Warrisden, as the mists wove and unwove about it, it had a look of dreamland.
They reached the end of the incline, and Pamela stopped her horse.
"This is my way," said she, pointing along the highway with her whip.
"Yes," answered Warrisden. The road ran straight for some distance, then crossed a wooden bridge and curved out of sight round the edge of a clump of trees. "The new road," he said softly. "The new road from Quetta to Seistan!"
Pamela smiled.
"This is Quetta," said she.
Warrisden laid his hand upon her horse's neck, and looked suddenly up into her face.
"Where will be Seistan?" he asked in a low voice.
Pamela returned the look frankly. There came a softness into her dark eyes. For a moment she let her hand rest lightly upon his sleeve, and did not speak. She herself was wondering how far she was to travel upon this new road.
"I cannot tell," she said very gently. "Nor, my friend, can you. Only"--and her voice took on a lighter and a whimsical tone-"only I start alone on my new road."