“But, dear Mrs. Everard, we can’t go on after dark,” urged Dinah.  “We should be frozen long before morning.  It is terribly cold already.  And poor Biddy will be so anxious about you.”

“Oh no!” Isabel spoke with supreme confidence.  “Biddy will know where I have gone.  She was asleep when I left, poor old soul.  She had had a bad night.”  A sudden sharp shudder caught her.  “All night I was struggling against the bars of my cage.  It was only when Biddy fell asleep that I found the door was open.  But you can go back, child,” she added.  “You had better go back.  Eustace won’t want to follow me if he has you.”

But Dinah’s hold instantly grew close and resolute.  “I shall not leave you,” she said, with decision.

Isabel made no further attempt to persuade her.  She seemed to regard it as a matter of trifling importance.  Her one aim was to reach those glowing peaks that glittered far above the floating mists like the glories half-revealed of another world.

It was nothing to her that the road by which they had come should be blotted out.  She had no thought for that, no desire or intention to return.  If an earthquake had rent away the ground behind them, she would not have been dismayed.  It was only the forward path, leading ever upwards to the desired country, that held her mind, and the memory of a voice that called far above the mountain height.

The sun sank, the glory faded.  The dark and the cold wrapped them round.  But still was she undaunted.  “When the dawn comes, we shall be there,” she said.

And Dinah heard her with a sinking heart.  She had no thought of leaving her, but she knew and faced the fact that in going on, she carried her life in her hand.  Yet she kept herself from despair.  Surely by now the brothers would have found out, and they would follow!  Surely they would follow!  And Eustace—­Eustace would thank her for what she had done.

She strained her ears for their coming; but she heard nothing—­nothing but their own muffled footsteps on the snow.  And ever the darkness deepened, and the mist crept closer around them.

She gathered all her courage to face the falling night.  She was sure she had done right to come and so she hoped God would take care of them.

CHAPTER XIX

THE CUP OF BITTERNESS

It was growing late on that same evening that Scott came through the hotel vestibule after a rehearsal of the concert which was to take place that evening and at which he had undertaken to play the accompaniments.  He glanced about him as he came as though in search of someone, and finally passed on to the smoking-room.  His eye were heavy and his face worn, but there was an air of resolution about him that gave purpose to his movements.

In the smoking-room several men were congregated, and in a corner of it sat Sir Eustace, writing a letter.  Scott came straight to him, and bent over him a hand on the back of his chair.