With his going a great sense of loneliness descended upon me. I felt the cold hand of despair feeling at my throat. With an effort of will I flung the deadening weight from me, and began to pace my plateau vigorously, my hands behind me, my head bent in thought. I must not prove a weakling or a craven now. Celeste would return. Jeff would find her--or if he did not, I would. The world was not big enough to hide her from me. A kind of mad joy flared out in my breast at the thought, and I smiled fiercely. Jeff had said positively that they would start home the day he found them. How did he know this? I had urged him to tell me, but he had only laughed, and repeated his statement. I could not clear this point, but I would not let it depress me. I was convinced the Satyr was genuine, and that he knew what he was talking about. His time of absence was indefinite. That was the hardest of all to bear. Had there been a fixed day in the future toward which I could walk with the assurance that on that day I should greet my beloved again, I could have gone laughing through the hours. But the uncertain waiting--the rising of sun after sun and the falling of night after night, and the still, empty minutes which must be lived! I strove to comfort myself in those first few hours after my self-appointed messenger had left. He knew these knobs intimately. He had been born in them, he had roamed them all his life, he knew every nook and hiding place in them for miles. He had also expressed his belief that the fugitives had not gone far. Perhaps a few days would bring about our reunion; surely it would not be longer than a week, or a fortnight at the farthest. There was solace in this thought. And as I hugged this phantom belief to me my furious pace slackened, and I continued my walking at a soberer gait, still too perturbed to sit down and think quietly.