Terrington was alone when it fell, riding along the column, persuading, encouraging, helping, threatening; lifting, by sheer strength of will, the tired trail of men higher and higher. He slid off his shaggy barebacked little pony, turned its tail to the wind, and leant against it for the warmth which he knew both soon would need. He had an immense capacity for patience, but it failed him now; and its failure taught him what otherwise he might have waited long to learn. For through those long bitter hours it was not of his men that he thought--his men who had been his only care and love for years--but of Rose Chantry. Thought of her, crouching frightened in her doolie, fallen somewhere in the snow, the warmth going surely hour by hour from her frail shivering little body, the cold fingers of death slowly closing upon her, and no one by to bring her comfort and help her to be brave. The thought was agony to him, and by the agony he knew that it was love. Light, vain, fickle, ignorant, there were reasons enough, and he knew them, for not even liking her. He did not know, for that matter, if he did like her. He longed with indescribable solicitude to see her face again. That was all he knew. Even the cold that crept numbingly through him could not stifle that desire. If the storm lasted for six hours no living thing would be left in the pass. He was not afraid of that. He feared to outlive it and find her dead. Yet when the storm ceased as suddenly as it began, he made no search for her. He was still that much master of himself. Finding a floor of rock swept bare by the wind, he diverted the line of march across it, and there, with Clones, inspected all the men as they passed for frost-bite; and soon had a row of them laid out under blankets and vigorously rubbed with snow. The wounded had suffered most; all the worst cases were dead, many were past help, and none had escaped injury: after them came the baggage carriers, ill-clad and ill-nourished as they were, nearly all of whom had paid for the exposure with a frozen foot or finger. It was right at the end of the transport that Rose's doolie appeared, and to Terrington's immense relief she thrust out her head from the curtains as the bearers halted. It was a face fearfully pinched and cold, but there was a new spirit behind it, for she would not speak of her own ailings, but insisted upon getting out to rub the hands of the frozen, till Clones, seeing she was likely to faint from fatigue, put her back in the doolie. On that night they camped below the Palári, and the next day it was crossed by the entire force. But though the wind spared them, that day was the most trying of the retreat. The blazing sun upon the snow after the storm had produced a rapid increase of snow blindness. Of the English officers Terrington alone was unaffected, the others all having to be led, Walcot especially being much disfigured and in great pain.