and stretched forth the shield he bore that it might cover them both.

"It is Mr. Greatheart!" she said to herself in wonder. "Of course--it is
Mr. Greatheart!"

And then, while she still gazed upon the glittering, princely form, he
put up a hand and lifted the visor. And she saw the kindly, steadfast
eyes all kindled and alight with a glory before which instinctively she
hid her own. Never--no, never--had she dreamed before that any man could
look at her so! It was not passion that those eyes held for her;--it was
worship.

She stood with bated breath and throbbing heart, waiting, waiting, as one
in the presence of a vision, who longs--yet fears--to look. And while she
waited she knew that the sun was shining upon them both with a glowing
warmth that filled her soul abrim with such a rapture as she had never
known before.

"How wonderful!" she murmured to herself. "How wonderful!"

And then at last she summoned courage to look up, and all in a moment her
vision was shattered. The darkness was all about her again; Greatheart
was gone.

CHAPTER XXI

THE RETURN

What happened after the passing of her vision Dinah never fully knew, so
slack had become her grip upon material things. Her spirit seemed to be
wandering aimlessly about the mountain-side while her body lay in icy
chains within that miserable shelter. Of Isabel's presence she was no
longer even dimly aware, and she knew neither fear nor pain, only a wide
desolation of emptiness that encompassed her as atmosphere encompasses
the world.

Sometimes she fancied that the sound of voices came muffled through the
fog that hung impenetrably upon the great slope. And when this fancy
caught her, her spirit drifted back very swiftly to the near
neighbourhood of that inert and frozen body that lay so helpless in the
dark. For that strange freedom of the spirit seemed to her to be highly
dangerous and in a fashion wrong. It would be a terrible thing if they
found and buried the body, and the spirit were left alone to wander for
ever homeless on that desolate mountain-side. She could not imagine a
fate more awful.

At the same time, being free from the body, she knew no physical pain,
and she shrank from returning before she need, knowing well the anguish
of suffering that awaited her. The desolation and loneliness made her
unhappy in a vague and not very comprehensible fashion, but she did not
suffer actively. That would come later when return became impe