“Margaret!” he called, involuntarily. The earth-cloud of mist closed round her, and the shadowy figure faded away. On he went again, stumbling in the ruts left by wheels in winter, nearly thrown by the tough heath, and the crooked furze stems holding his foot, and fast losing his wind. He struggled up the slope, and finally, perforce, came to a striding walk. Suddenly he stopped—a low neigh floated in the stillness up from a vale on his left. Her path turned there, then; he would cut across the angle. But, taught by experience, he paused at the edge of the descent, and listened before going down. In a minute or two another faint clicking of flints sounded behind him. “By Jove, I begin to think—aha!” The flints clicked in the stillness away on his right. Then after a brief while a dark indistinct object crossed in front of him. “All round me,” said Geoffrey, aloud. “I understand.” He bounded forward, refreshed by his short pause. In three minutes the dark object resolved itself into the chestnut, standing still now on the verge of a gloomy hollow.
Then, close upon his quarry, the hunter slackened speed. It was his turn now; he strolled slowly, halted, even turned his back upon her, and looked up at the sky. The stars were shining; till that moment he had not realised that it was night. By-and-by he went nearer.
“Geoffrey!” she called, faintly. No reply.
“Geoffrey!”—louder—“is that you?”
“Yes, dear.” The first time he had used the word to her.
“Do come to me!” in a tone of distress. He ran eagerly to her side.
“It is dark,” she said, in a low voice, “and—and I have lost the way.”
“I thought you had; you rode all round me.”
“Did I? O, then I am lost, indeed; that is what people always do when they are lost on the hills—they go round and round in a circle. Where is your horse?”
“I left him lame, a long way behind.”