“Yes—I am here! Do you want me?”
Something like a sob sounded in the Editor’s throat.
“Do I want you? My little Margot! Did I ever want anything before? Come, I will warm your little cold hands. I will lead you every step of the way. You can’t sit here any longer to perish of cold. We will walk on, and ask God to guide our feet. Lean on me. Don’t be afraid!”
Then the dream became a moving one, in which she was borne forward encircled by protecting arms; on and on; unceasingly onward, with ever-increasing difficulty and pain.
George Elgood never knew whether he hit, as he supposed, a straight road forward, or wandered aimlessly over the same ground. His one care was to support his companion, and to test each footstep before he took it; for the rest, he had put himself in God’s hands, with a simple faith which expected a reply; and when at last the light of the cottage windows shone feebly through the mist his thankfulness was as great as his relief.
As for Margot, she was too completely exhausted to realise relief; she knew only a shrinking from the light, from the strange watching face; a deathly sensation as of falling from a towering height, before darkness and oblivion overpowered her, and she lay stretched unconscious upon the bed.