III

THE SEARCH

When Isabel came slowly forth at length from the hotel door whither Biddy
had conducted her, Scott was sitting alone on a bench in the sunshine.

He rose at once to join her. "Why, how quick you have been! Or else the
time flies here. Eustace is still skating. I had no idea he was so
accomplished. See, there he is!"

But Isabel set her haggard face towards the mountain-road that wound up
beyond the hotel. "I am going to look for Basil," she said.

"It is waste of time," said Scott quietly.

But he did not attempt to withstand her. They turned side by side up the
hard, snowy track.

For some time they walked in silence. At a short distance from the hotel,
the road ascended steeply through a pine-wood, dark and mysterious as an
enchanted forest, through which there rose the sound of a rushing stream.

Scott paused to listen, but instantly his sister laid an imperious hand
upon him.

"I can't wait," she said. "I am sure he is just round the corner. I heard
him whistle."

He moved on in response to her insistence. "I heard that whistle too," he
said. "But it was a mountain-boy."

He was right. At a curve in the road, they met a young Swiss lad who went
by them with a smile and salute, and fell to whistling again when he had
passed.

Isabel pressed on in silence. She had started in feverish haste, but her
speed was gradually slackening. She looked neither to right nor left; her
eyes perpetually strained forward as though they sought for something
just beyond their range of vision. For a while Scott limped beside her
without speaking, but at last as they sighted the end of the pine-wood he
gently broke the silence.

"Isabel dear, I think we must turn back very soon."

"Oh, why?" she said. "Why? You always say that when--" There came a break
in her voice, and she ceased to speak.

Her pace quickened so that he had some difficulty in keeping up with her,
but he made no protest. With the utmost patience he also pressed on.

But it was not long before her strength began to fail. She stumbled once
or twice, and he put a supporting hand under her elbow. As they neared
the edge of the pines it became evident that the road dwindled to a mere
mountain-path winding steeply upwards through the snow. The sun shone
dazzlingly upon the great waste of whiteness.

Very suddenly Isabel stopped. "He can't have gone this way after all,"
she said, and turned to her brother with eyes of tragic hopelessness.