"Yes," she said. "Nevertheless I hoped . . . I don't know what. . . . I had no object in view. . . . I only wanted us to be alone together, just the two of us, as long as possible. It's over now. I swear it. . . . We shall find Miss Bakefield. . . . Let me take you to her: I think I shall be better able than you. . . ." Was she sincere? How could he reconcile this offer of devotion with the passion to which she had confessed? "What proof have you?" asked Simon. "What proof of my loyalty? The absolute acknowledgement of the wrong which I have done and which I wish to repair. This morning, when I came here alone, I looked all over the ground to see if there was anything that might give us a clue and I ended by discovering on the edge of this rock a scrap of paper with some writing on it. . . ." "Have you it?" cried Simon, sharply. "Has she written? Miss Bakefield, I mean?" "Yes." "It's for me, of course?" continued Simon, with increasing excitement. "It's not addressed. But of course it was written for you just as yesterday's message was. Here it is. . . ." She held out a piece of paper, moist and crumpled, on which he read the following words, hastily scribbled in Isabel's hand: "No longer making for Dieppe. They have heard a rumour of a fountain of gold . . . a real, gushing spring, it seems. We are going in that direction. No immediate cause for anxiety." And Dolores added: "They left before daybreak, going up the river. If this river is really the Somme, we must suppose that they have crossed it somewhere, which will have delayed them. So we shall find them, Simon." CHAPTER III SIDE BY SIDE The jaded horse was incapable of further service. They had to abandon it, after emptying the saddle-bags and removing the rug, which Dolores wrapped about her like a soldier's cloak. They set out again. Henceforth the girl directed the pursuit. Simon, reassured by Isabel's letter, allowed Dolores to lead the way and twenty times over had occasion to remark her perspicacity and the accuracy of her judgment or intuition. Then, less anxious, feeling that she understood, he became more talkative and abandoned himself, as on the previous day, to the burst of enthusiasm which the miracle of this new world awakened in him. The still unsettled coast-line, the irresolute river, the changing hues of the water, the ever-varying forms of the heights and valleys, the contours of the landscape, hardly more definite as yet than those of an infant's face: all of this, for an hour or two, was to him a source of wonder and exaltation.