He glanced at her and her companion with some swift scrutiny.
"You are wet," said he, in the same distant and reserved fashion. "You will find a fire in the widow's cottage."
"You might show us the way," said Käthchen, half-piteously. "We are frightened."
After that he could not well leave them; though, to be sure, the way to the cottage was plain and easy enough, so long as they kept back from the dangerous Meall-na-Fearn bog. He walked ahead of them, slowly; he did not attempt to speak to them. His demeanour had not been unfriendly; on the contrary, it had been courteous; but it was courtesy of a curiously formal and reticent kind. Perhaps he had not known who these strangers were when he came so quickly to their help.
And in truth the two girls could hardly follow him; for now all the enfeeblement of the terror they had suffered had come upon them; they were no longer strung up by a shuddering apprehension of being entombed in that hideous morass; and the previous fatigue, physical and nervous, that they had fought against so heroically, was beginning to tell now, especially upon Mary. At length she did stop; she said "Käthchen! Käthchen!" in a low voice; her figure swayed, as if she would fall to the earth; and then she sank to her knees, and burst into a wild fit of hysterical weeping, covering her face with her hands. Their guide did not happen to notice: he was going on: and it was becoming dark.
"Stay a moment, sir!" said Käthchen, in tones of indignant remonstrance. "My friend is tired out."
He came back at once.
"I beg your pardon," said he, gravely. "Tell her it is only a little way further. I am going on to get something ready for you."
And he did go on; so that it was left for Käthchen to encourage her companion, and subdue this nervous agitation.
"It is only the cold, Käthchen," said Mary, who was trembling from head to foot. "I suppose you are wet through, too."