He moved on in response to her insistence. "I heard that whistle too," he said. "But it was a mountain-boy."
He was right. At a curve in the road, they met a young Swiss lad who went by them with a smile and salute, and fell to whistling again when he had passed.
Isabel pressed on in silence. She had started in feverish haste, but her speed was gradually slackening. She looked neither to right nor left; her eyes perpetually strained forward as though they sought for something just beyond their range of vision. For a while Scott limped beside her without speaking, but at last as they sighted the end of the pine-wood he gently broke the silence.
"Isabel dear, I think we must turn back very soon."
"Oh, why?" she said. "Why? You always say that when—" There came a break in her voice, and she ceased to speak.
Her pace quickened so that he had some difficulty in keeping up with her, but he made no protest. With the utmost patience he also pressed on.
But it was not long before her strength began to fail. She stumbled once or twice, and he put a supporting hand under her elbow. As they neared the edge of the pines it became evident that the road dwindled to a mere mountain-path winding steeply upwards through the snow. The sun shone dazzlingly upon the great waste of whiteness.
Very suddenly Isabel stopped. "He can't have gone this way after all," she said, and turned to her brother with eyes of tragic hopelessness. "Stumpy, Stumpy, what shall I do?"
He drew her hand very gently through his arm. "We will go back, dear," he said.
A low sob escaped her, but she did not weep. "If I only had the strength to go on and on and on!" she said. "I know I should find him some day then."