s Bathurst's too. We shall want boiling water--lots of it. That's your
job. Come along!"

He urged her gently to the stairs, and went up with her, holding her arm.

At the top she stopped and gave him an anguished look. "Ah, Master Scott
darlint, will the Almighty be merciful? Will He bring her safe back
again?"

He drew her gently on. "That's another thing you can do, Biddy," he said.
"Ask Him!"

And before his look Biddy commanded herself and grew calmer. "Faith,
Master Scott," she said, "if it isn't yourself that's taught me the
greatest lesson of all!"

A very compassionate smile shone in Scott's eyes as he passed on and left
her. "Poor old Biddy," he murmured, as he went. "It's easy to preach to
such as you. But, O God, there's no denying it's bitter work for those
who stay behind!"

He knew that he and Biddy were destined to drink that cup of bitterness
to the dregs ere the night passed.

CHAPTER XX

THE VISION OF GREATHEART

The darkness of the night lay like a black pall upon the mountain. The
snow was falling thickly, and ever more thickly. It drifted in upon
Dinah, as she crouched in the shelter of an empty shed that had been
placed on that high slope for the protection of sheep from the spring
storms. They had come upon this shelter just as the gloom had become too
great for even Isabel to regard further progress as possible, and in
response to the girl's insistence they had crept in to rest. They had
lost the beaten track long since; neither of them had realized when. But
the certainty that they had done so had had its effect upon Isabel. Her
energies had flagged from the moment that it had dawned upon her. A
deadly tiredness had come over her, a feebleness so complete that Dinah
had had difficulty in getting her into the shelter. Return was utterly
out of the question. They were hopelessly lost, and to wander in that
densely falling snow was to court disaster.

Very thankful Dinah had been to find even so poor a refuge in that waste
of drifting fog; but now as she huddled by Isabel's side it seemed to her
that the relief afforded was but a prolonging of their agony. The cold
was intense. It seemed to penetrate to her very bones, and she knew by
her companion's low moaning that she was suffering keenly also.

Isabel seemed to have sunk into a state of semi-consciousness, and only
now and then did broken words escape her--words scarcely audible to
Dinah, but which testified none the less