He made one last spasmodic effort, like a dying man clutching at his life. He ran forward in a mad revolt, and the well-loved name sprang to his lips. "Kitty!" he shouted, his whole being in the cry. But no answer came back to him; he heard the lanthorn still faintly clanking against the saddle, and the mountains drearily mocking him with their melancholy repetition of his word, while the light went steadily dwindling down the Pass--a pin's head of fire. For a moment he waited stone-still, staring after it, and then flung himself face-downwards in the bracken, tearing the roots convulsively with his fingers. A savage fury seized him and ran through his veins like a flame, demanding action and retaliation. Any passive return to the old trough of his cynicism was barred by a clear consciousness of what might have been had Kate but matched his truth to her with a like truth to him, and by an exaggerated self-reproach which led him still to fix the chief blame for her treachery upon his own failure to understand her. But there was another man to share his blame. The thought swept down upon him--a black whirlwind blotting out even the image of Kate. If he had erred himself, it was through excess of chivalry; he could, at all events, plead that. But Hawke! Gordon was unable to think of him; he only saw him a sinister picture of malice and craft, and as he looked he became filled with a venom of hate. Hawke's face rose before his mind, every feature magnified and stamped with the brand of his character, and remained fixed in full view leering at him. Gordon's loathing grew until he felt sick with the strength of it. He sprang hastily to his feet. The night was very clear, and low down to the ground a spark was just visible in the far distance. But he did not look that way; he turned his back towards Keswick and blindly, with stumbling steps, descended into Wastdale towards his enemy. And all the length of that path Hawke's face bore him company. * * * * *