Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/219

 and touched his face. It needed to muster everything that he had in him not to put his arms around her. He conquered himself. "That's nothing," he said; "I had some trouble climbing up from the cliff. I was just half-way up when the fog came on. It wasn't much of a path in any case."

She stood with her hand on his arm. "Oh, what shall we do? We shall never find the boat now. The fog will clear and we will be caught. We can't move from here while it lasts."

"No," he said firmly, "we can't move. This is the place where Dunbar will expect us. He'll turn up here at any moment. Meanwhile, we must just wait for him. Is the pony all right?"

"I don't know what I'd have done without the pony," she said. "When the fog came up I was terrified. I didn't know what I'd better do. I called your names, but, of course, you didn't hear. And then it got colder and colder and I kept thinking that I was seeing Them. His red hair...."

She suddenly, shivering, put her hand on his arm. "Oh, don't let them find us," she said; "I couldn't go back to that. I would rather kill myself. I would kill myself if I went back. What they are—oh! you don't know!"

He took her hand and held it firmly. "Now see here, we don't know how long Dunbar will be, or how long the fog will last, or anything. We can't do anything but stay here, and it's no good if