But a sudden determination flamed up in Harkness that it should be he, and none other, that should fetch Hesther Crispin. "No, I'll go. There's no need for you to come though. We'll be back here in ten minutes. I'll see that she gets down all right." "Very well," said Dunbar. "But look after her. She's not so good a climber as she thinks she is." So Harkness started off. He waved his hand to Dunbar who was now busied with the boat, and began his climb. He stumbled over the wet rocks, nearly fell once or twice, and then came to the little path. His thought now was all of Hesther. He played with his imagination, picturing to himself that he was going right out of the world to some unknown heights where she awaited him, having chosen him out of all the world, and there they would live together, alone, happy always in one another's company. . . . What a fool he was when she was married, and, even if she freed herself from that horrid encumbrance, had that boy down there in the Cove waiting for her. But he could not help his own state. It did no harm. He told no one. It was so new for him, this rich thrilling tingle of emotion at the thought of some other human being, something so different from his love for his sisters and his admiration for his friends. And to-night from first to last there had been all the time this same _tingling_ of experience. From his first getting into the train until now he had seemed to be in direct contact with life, contact with all the wrappers off, with nothing in between him and it! That he must never lose again. After this night he must never slip back to that old half-life with its dilettante pleasures, its mild disappointments, its vague sense of exile. He could not have Hesther for himself, but, at least, he could live the full life that she and her country had shown to him. "Ours is a great wild country. . . ." Never back to the level plains again! Full of these fine brave exulting thoughts he had climbed a very considerable way when--suddenly the path was gone. There was no path, no rocks, no hillside, no Cove, no sea, no stars--nothing. He was standing on air. The fog in one second had crept upon him. Not the thin glassy mist of twenty minutes ago but a thick, dense, blinding fog that hemmed in like walls of wadding on every side. In the sudden panic his legs gave way and he fell on to his knees and hands, clutching both sides of the narrow path, staring desperately before him. He heard the Liddon bell, as it seemed, quite close to his side, ringing down upon him. IV His first thought was of Hesther--then of Dunbar. Here they were all three of them, separated. The fog might last for hours. He called, "Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!" The bell echoed him, mocking him, "Dunbar! Dunbar! Dunbar!"