Poor Hilda! She could have sunk to the ground with sheer heart sickness and despair as she stood there listening. The answer was the mere echo of her own voice. She tried it again and again to make sure of this, and then two or three tears forced themselves from her eyes, and a sob escaped her. It was too terrible, too heart-breaking altogether. No. It was clearly of no use standing still; besides, she felt the cold and damp. She must move if only to keep off the deadly shivers which were creeping upon her. But in what direction? And as though the bewildering effect of the mist was not enough she remembered that in trying to catch the horse she had been drawn to describe a complete circle, and that three times: in fact the perverse brute had done for her exactly what is done for the blindfolded one in blind man's buff, when he or she is started upon his or her quest, and with exactly the same effect. Darker it grew. Night was coming on, and far down in the valley beneath a wolf howled--then another and another. Hilda remembered how they had listened to the cry of the ravening beasts there in the lighted security of the camp, could almost have smiled to herself as she pictured Mrs Tarleton, or any other woman of her acquaintance, here, in her own plight, with the certainty before her of a night in the awful loneliness of these savage mountain solitudes, surrounded, for all she could tell, by prowling beasts of prey. That such would hardly do less than simply expire she firmly believed, and in truth the situation was fraught with every terrifying and exhausting element even for her. Yet Hilda Clive thought but little of herself in the matter. What would become of her companion, left alone on the wet hill side--ill, fainting, fever-stricken? and this was the idea that caused her to raise her hand to her head and press her brows hard as though to control the working of the busy brain within the limits of coherency. What should she do, and how do it? Again and again all sorts of expedients would suggest themselves. She would walk a given distance in each direction--not down, for she had been descending slightly in her pursuit of the horse--then retrace her steps, and try another. She would walk all night if necessary--but she would find him. And then, with a terrible heart sinking, two considerations occurred to her--one that she might pass him within a few yards in the darkness and mist, the other that she herself was beginning to feel faint with fatigue and hunger. No matter. If will power could carry anyone through, it should her. Then an idea came to her--swept in upon her mind like a lighthouse flash in the gloom; for it seemed just the idea she had been groping after. The quarter of the wind!