He urged her gently to the stairs, and went up with her, holding her arm.
At the top she stopped and gave him an anguished look. "Ah, Master Scott darlint, will the Almighty be merciful? Will He bring her safe back again?"
He drew her gently on. "That's another thing you can do, Biddy," he said.
"Ask Him!"
And before his look Biddy commanded herself and grew calmer. "Faith, Master Scott," she said, "if it isn't yourself that's taught me the greatest lesson of all!"
A very compassionate smile shone in Scott's eyes as he passed on and left her. "Poor old Biddy," he murmured, as he went. "It's easy to preach to such as you. But, O God, there's no denying it's bitter work for those who stay behind!"
He knew that he and Biddy were destined to drink that cup of bitterness to the dregs ere the night passed.
CHAPTER XX
THE VISION OF GREATHEART
The darkness of the night lay like a black pall upon the mountain. The snow was falling thickly, and ever more thickly. It drifted in upon Dinah, as she crouched in the shelter of an empty shed that had been placed on that high slope for the protection of sheep from the spring storms. They had come upon this shelter just as the gloom had become too great for even Isabel to regard further progress as possible, and in response to the girl's insistence they had crept in to rest. They had lost the beaten track long since; neither of them had realized when. But the certainty that they had done so had had its effect upon Isabel. Her energies had flagged from the moment that it had dawned upon her. A deadly tiredness had come over her, a feebleness so complete that Dinah had had difficulty in getting her into the shelter. Return was utterly out of the question. They were hopelessly lost, and to wander in that densely falling snow was to court disaster.
Very thankful Dinah had been to find even so poor a refuge in that waste of drifting fog; but now as she huddled by Isabel's side it seemed to her that the relief afforded was but a prolonging of their agony. The cold was intense. It seemed to penetrate to her very bones, and she knew by her companion's low moaning that she was suffering keenly also.