Could it be possible that a passion so uncleanly could rise to the least nobility of despair? For a moment Tuke’s heart swerved in a rush of pity for anything so forlorn.
“We may find it yet,” he said. “When it is safe to return we will look here again.”
“No,” said the other; “it is lost to me for ever. I know now and feel it.”
He went out first, with a dull and dogged step. Dennis lingered to whisper a last word of love to the stark thing on the pallet. Suddenly he stooped, lifted the skull from the stone whereon his master had replaced it, and laid it softly down at the feet of the dead woman.
“Perhaps he kneels there now, and is forgiven,” he murmured. Then he blew out the candle and followed the others into the open air.
As he came forth of the thicket, a charge of laden wind near took him off his feet. Staggering and half-blinded, it was some moments before he could collect his sight and his senses. Then he saw his companions huddled about the trunk of a little beech tree, and ran to them, foretasting the peril.
One and all they were now menaced by a loss more final than that of any stone, however costly. While they were within, the wind had called up its reserves and the undulating plain was all one sheeted spectre of driving white.
“We must make the attempt,” said Tuke. “To stay here is to perish.”
He took Blythewood’s arm, and drove into the whirl as he spoke. The other two followed apart.
The snow was up to their ankles; it hurtled into their faces and stung their blinking eyelids. Every minute they felt the labour of progress more acute.