Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/253

 They moved now much more rapidly, and in their hearts was an intense, an eager relief. The fog thinned until it was a wall of silver. Nothing was distant, but it was a world of tangible reality. They could kick pebbles with their feet, could hear sheep moving on the farther side of the hedge.

"This is better." said Dunbar. "We'll get out of this yet. Cranach is only a mile or so from here. I know this lane well. And the fog's going to lift at last."

Even as he spoke it swept up, thick and grey deeper than before. The trees disappeared, the hedges. They had once more to grope for one another's hands and walk close.

Harkness could feel from the way that Hesther leaned against him, and the drag of her feet, that she was near the end of her endurance. She said nothing. Only walked on and on.

They were all now silent. They must have walked it seemed to them, for miles. An endless walk that had no beginning and no end. And then Harkness was strangely aware—how, he never knew—that Dunbar and Hesther were drawing closer together.

He felt that new relation that he had in a way created beginning to grow between them. She drew away from Harkness ever so slightly. Then suddenly he knew that Dunbar had put his arm round her and was holding her up. She was so