Isabel went up the steep track with a wonderful elasticity, looking neither to right nor left.  Her eyes were fixed perpetually forwards, with the look in them of one who strains towards a goal.  Her lips were parted, and the eagerness of her face went to Dinah’s heart.

They came out above the pine-wood.  They reached and passed the spot where she and Scott had turned back on their first walk together.  The snow crunched crisply underfoot.  The ascent was becoming more and more acute.

Dinah was panting.  Light as she was, with all the activity of youth in her veins, she found it hard to keep up, for Isabel was pressing, pressing hard.  She went as one in whom the fear of pursuit was ever present, paying no heed to her companion, seeming indeed to have almost forgotten her presence.

On and on, up and up, they went on their rapid pilgrimage.  The winding of the road had taken them out of sight of the hotel, and the whole world seemed deserted.  The sun-rays slanted ever more and more obliquely.  The valley behind them had fallen into shadow.

Before them and very far above them towered the great pinnacles, clothed in the everlasting snows, beginning to turn golden above their floating wreaths of mist.  Even where they were, trails like the ragged edges of a cloud drifted by them, and the coldness of the air held a clammy quality.  The sparkling dryness of the atmosphere seemed to be dissolving into these thin, veil-like vapours.  The cold was more penetrating than Dinah had ever before experienced.

Now and then an icy draught came swirling down upon them, making her shiver, though it was evident that Isabel was unaware of it.  The harder the way became, the more set upon her purpose did she seem to be.  Dinah marvelled at her strength and unvarying determination.  There was about it an element of the wild, not far removed from ferocity.  Her uneasiness was growing with every step, and something that was akin to fear began to knock at her heart.  The higher they mounted, the more those trails of mist increased.  Very soon now the sun would be gone.  Already it had ceased to warm that world of snow.  And what would happen then?  What if the dusk came upon them while still they pressed on up that endless, difficult track?

Timidly she clasped Isabel’s arm at last.  “It will be getting dark soon,” she said.  “Shouldn’t we be going back?”

For a moment Isabel’s eyes swept round upon her, and she marvelled at their intense and fiery brilliance.  But instantly they sought the mountain-tops again, all rose-lit in the opal glow of sunset.

“You can go back, child,” she said.  “I must go on.”

“But it is getting so late,” pleaded Dinah.  “And look at the mist!  If we keep on much longer, we may be lost.”

Isabel quickened her pace.  “I am not afraid,” she said, and her voice thrilled with a deep rapture.  “He is waiting for me, there where the mountains meet the sky.  I shall find him in the dawn.  I know that I shall find him.”