o well with him. There was no logic in the
conclusion; and she knew it. But logic has little to do with conviction:
and many who came to know Desmond fell into this same trick of depending
on him to win through the thing to which he set his band. Yet his
optimism had no affinity with the cheap school of philosophy, that nurses
a pleasant mind without reference to disconcerting facts. It was the
outcome of that supreme faith in an Ultimate Best, working undismayed
through failure and pain, which lies at the root of all human
achievement: and it was, in consequence, singularly infectious and
convincing.

Quita's impressionable spirit readily caught a reflection from its rays:
and hope revived sent a glow through all her chilled body.

"Take a stiff whisky toddy the minute you get in," he commanded, while
lifting her into the saddle. "And try to remember that over-anxiety
won't mend matters. It will only exhaust your strength. I'll come in
and see you whenever I can. Ride on at once," he added hastily, for the
stretcher, with its pitiful burden, was close upon them. "We'll catch
you up."

She obeyed with a childlike docility that touched him to the heart, and
he turned quickly to his wife.

"Come on, you dear, drenched woman. You've no business to be here at
all; and we mustn't keep 'em waiting."

"But Theo, . . . your feet!" she murmured distressfully. "Are they quite
cut to bits?"

"No--not quite." He glanced whimsically down at his dishevelled figure.
"Lord, what a scarecrow I must be! Aren't you half-ashamed of owning me?"

"Well--naturally!" she answered, beaming upon him as she set her foot in
the hollow of his hand. "I shall see something of you,--shan't I?"

"Trust me for that. See all you can of her too. She's as plucky as they
make 'em: but she may need it all and more, before we're through with
this, poor little soul."

He mounted, and rode with them as far as the woodsheds, where the men
branched off to the Forest bungalow, leaving the two women to ride on
alone: and, in obedience to Desmond's parting injunction, they kept up a
steady canter most of the way.

CHAPTER XV.

"How the light light love, he has wings to fly
At suspicion of a bond."
--Browning.

The rugged peak of Bakrota was enveloped in a grey winding-sheet,
impenetrable, all-pervading; a dense mass of vapour ceaselessly rolling
onward, yet never rolling past. It was as if the mountain had bec