"This fog is too much of a good thing. Don't you think so? I guess we could blow it away if we all tried hard enough? You think Americans always say 'I guess,' don't you? The English books always make them. But don't you believe it. We only do it to please the English. They like it. It satisfies their vanity."
He seemed to be climbing an enormous endless staircase. He mounted another step, two, and suddenly was wide awake.
"What nonsense I'm talking! I've been half asleep. This fog gets into your brain." He felt Hesther's arm within his. He patted her hand encouragingly. "It's all right, Hesther. We'll be out of this soon. Just another minute or two."
"By Jove, you're right," Dunbar cried; "these are trees."
And they were. A whole row of them. Crusoe was not more glad to see the footprint on the sand than were those three to see those trees. "Now I know where we are!" Dunbar cried triumphantly. "Here's the bridge and here's the lane. What luck to have found it!"
The trees seemed to step forward and greet them, each one tall and dignified, welcoming them to a happier country. They were on a road and had no longer the turf beneath their feet. The fog here was truly thinner so that very dimly they could see the mark of the hedge like a clothes-line in mid-air.
They moved now much more rapidly, and in their hearts was an intense, an eager relief. The fog thinned until it was a wall of silver. Nothing was distant, but it was a world of tangible reality. They could kick pebbles with their feet, could hear sheep moving on the farther side of the hedge.
"This is better," said Dunbar. "We'll get out of this yet. Cranach is only a mile or so from here. I know this lane well. And the fog's going to lift at last."
Even as he spoke it swept up, thick and grey deeper than before. The trees disappeared, the hedges. They had once more to grope for one another's hands and walk close.
Harkness could feel from the way that Hesther leaned against him, and the drag of her feet, that she was near the end of her endurance. She said nothing. Only walked on and on.