The candle burned more wanly now. The thick, dead air cumbered their going, and they were drenched as with intolerable heat, though the caves were damp and chill.
“Have we far to go?” asked Causleen faintly.
Hardcastle, seeing a low slab of rock that jutted into the track, guided her to it and kept his arm about her.
“I’d forgotten you needed rest,” he said, with grave gentleness.
The cool air, now that no effort was asked, revived her weariness. “I have no fear, Dick—except that the journey may be too long for me.”
“It’s a long journey for us both. There’s no hope at all of winning out, Causleen.”
She touched his sleeve with a caress so soft, so all-revealing, that his hardihood was near to breaking. “Such dreams I’ve had—of us two, and Logie, and the summer days to come. And now they’re over—but you are with me, Dick.”
He dared not break the silence. So steadfastly her spirit marched with his, that he thought of the rough welcome he had given her when she first came to Logie. So close they stood together now, that suddenly death took new shape and substance. If there were to be no mating-days with Causleen up at Logie, they must find them in some world beyond.
“Where would you have me go? I am strong again,” she asked by and by.
Once more, saying no word, he took her by the hand, and they crept through the dank, lifeless air, over the broken ground. Here and there the light glinted on flint arrow-heads—fashioned, maybe, by the folk whose skulls had peered at them not long ago—and his thoughts raced back to the day when Pedlar Donald found the token on Logie’s gate.