"Jean, dear, I am not a child to be made. Your father knows me better. Tell me, have you found him?"
"If you would but wait—till the others have been—"
"No: I am going on."
Jean's arm fell with a despairing gesture. Then she grasped the lamp which Walters held, thrust it into her father's hand, muttered hoarsely—
"Come—after us—" and led the way with Walters, urging him vehemently to a speed far beyond Evelyn's powers.
Mr. Trevelyan, fully understanding, did his best to hold Mrs. Villiers back.
So Jean and Walters arrived first at the spot, where General Villiers lay, face downwards, on the snow-covered grass, which here sloped a little into the almost full dyke. He seemed to have fallen thus, exhausted, overcome with cold, and his face was buried in the half frozen mud.
Jean by herself had struggled in vain to move the prostrate figure, but Walters could do what she had failed to accomplish. When Evelyn came up, her husband lay asleep, as it might be, on a winding-sheet of pure snow, "like a warrior taking his rest," calm and silent; while Jean knelt beside him, wiping away with her handkerchief the mud which still clung to the sealed eyes, the rigid and purple lips.
"My poor master!" groaned Walters.
Evelyn did not at once grasp how things were, or, if in her heart she knew, she would not at once accept the truth. A mist over the moon had thickened into cloud, blotting out most of its light, but now the cloud rolled on, leaving a clear landscape. The quiet face could be seen plainly—hardly paler than Jean's. Evelyn's glance went from the one to the other.