Very slowly they walked down the hill. There were no driving mists to-day, the evening was coming with a great peace, the fields and woods lay spread beneath them toned to a tranquil grey. The white road glimmered. At the bottom of the hill Pamela stopped. "Good-bye," she said; and there was more tenderness in her voice and in her face than he had ever known. She laid her hand upon his arm and bent down to him. "Come back to me," she said wistfully. "I do not like letting you go; and yet I am rather proud to know that you are doing something for me which I could not do for myself, and that you do it so very willingly." She did not wait to hear any answer, but took her hand from his arm and rode quickly away. That turnpike gate of friendship had already swung open of its own accord. As she rode from Quetta that evening, she passed beyond it, and went gratefully and hopefully, with the other men and women, down the appointed road. She knew it while she was riding homewards to the Croft Hill. She knew it, and was very glad. She rode home very slowly through the tranquil evening, and gave herself up to joy. It was warm, and there was a freshness in the air as though the world renewed itself. Darkness came; only the road glimmered ahead of her--the new road, which was the old road. Even that glimmer of white had almost vanished when at last she saw the lighted windows of her father's house. The footman told her that dinner was already served, but she ran past him very quickly up the stairs, and coming to her own room, locked the door and sat for a long while in the darkness, her blood throbbing in her veins, her whole heart uplifted, not thinking at all, but just living, and living most joyfully. She sat so still that she might have been in a swoon; but it was the stillness of perfect happiness. She knew the truth that night.