The February afternoon in Long Whindale, shortened by the first heavy snowstorm of the winter, passed quickly into darkness. Down through all the windings of the valley the snow showers swept from the north, becoming, as the wind dropped a little toward night, a steady continuous fall, which in four or five hours had already formed drifts of some depth in exposed places.

Toward six o'clock, the small farmer living across the lane from Burwood became anxious about some sheep which had been left in a high "intak" on the fell. He was a thriftless, procrastinating fellow, and when the storm came on about four o'clock had been taking his tea in a warm ingle-nook by his wife's fire. He was then convinced that the storm would "hod off," at least till morning, that the sheep would get shelter enough from the stone walls of the "intak," and that all was well. But a couple of hours later the persistence of the snowfall, together with his wife's reproaches, goaded him into action. He went out with his son and lanterns, intending to ask the old shepherd at the Bridge Farm to help them in their expedition to find and fold the sheep.

Meanwhile, in the little sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere and Mary were sitting, the one with her book, the other with her needlework, while the snow and wind outside beat on the little house. But Catharine's needlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages of Mary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up the dale in the morning, and took letters back to Whinborough at night, had just passed by in his little cart, hooded and cloaked against the storm, and hoping to reach Whinborough before the drifts in the roads had made travelling too difficult. Mary had put into his hands a letter addressed to the Rev. Richard Meynell, Hotel Richelieu, Paris. And beside her on the table lay a couple of sheets of foreign notepaper, covered closely with Meynell's not very legible handwriting.

Catharine also had some open letters on her lap. Presently she turned to
Mary.

"The Bishop thinks the trial will certainly end tomorrow."

"Yes," said Mary, without raising her eyes.

Catharine took her daughter's hand in a tender clasp.

"I am so sorry!—for you both."

"Dearest!" Mary laid her mother's hand against her cheek. "But I don't think Richard will be misunderstood again."

"No. The Bishop says that mysterious as it all is, nobody blames him for being absent. They trust him. But this time, it seems, he did write to the Bishop—just a few words."

"Yes, I know. I am glad." But as she spoke, the pale severity of the girl's look belied the word she used. During the fortnight of Meynell's absence, while he and Alice Puttenham in the south of France had been following every possible clue in a vain search for Hester, and the Arches trial had been necessarily left entirely to the management of Meynell's counsel, and to the resources of his co-defendants, Darwen and Chesham, Mary had suffered much. To see his own brilliant vindication of himself and his followers, in the face of religious England, snuffed out and extinguished in a moment by the call of this private duty had been hard!—all the more seeing that the catastrophe had been brought about by misconduct so wanton, so flagrant, as Hester's. There had sprung up in Mary's mind, indeed, a saeva indignatio, not for herself, but for Richard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knew Meynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester must sometimes be forgotten in a natural resentment for high aims thwarted, and a great movement risked, by the wicked folly of a girl of eighteen, on whom every affection and every care had been lavished.

"The roads will be impassable to-morrow," said Catharine, drawing aside the curtain, only to see a window already blocked with drifted snow. "But—who can be ringing on such a night!"

For a peal of the front door bell went echoing through the little house.

Mary stepped into the hall, and herself opened the door, only to be temporarily blinded by the rush of wind and snow through the opening.

"A telegram!" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Please come in and wait. Isn't it very bad?"

"I hope I'll be able to get back!" laughed the young man who had brought it. "The roads are drifting up fast. It was noa good bicycling. I got 'em to gie me a horse. I've just put him in your stable, miss."

But Mary heard nothing of what he was saying. She had rushed back into the sitting-room.

"Mother!—Richard and Miss Puttenham will be here to-night. They have heard of Hester."

In stupefaction they read the telegram, which had had been sent from
Crewe:

"Received news of Hester on arrival Paris yesterday. She has left M. Says she has gone to find your mother. Keep her. We arrive to-night Whinborough 7.10."

"It is now seven," said Catharine, looking at her watch. "But where—where is she?"

Hurriedly they called their little parlour-maid into the room and questioned her with closed doors. No—she knew nothing of any visitor. Nobody had called; nobody, so far as she knew, had passed by, except the ordinary neighbours. Once in the afternoon, indeed, she had thought she heard a carriage pass the bottom of the lane, but on looking out from the kitchen she had seen nothing of it.

Out of this slender fact, the only further information that could be extracted was a note of time. It was, the girl thought, about four o'clock when she heard the carriage pass.

"But it couldn't have passed," Catharine objected, "or you would have seen it go up the valley."

The girl assented, for the kitchen window commanded the road up to the bridge. Then the carriage, if she had really heard it, must have come to the foot of the lane, turned and gone back toward Whinborough again. There was no other road available.

The telegraph messenger was dismissed, after a cup of coffee; and thankful for something to do, Catharine and Mary, with minds full of conjecture and distress, set about preparing two rooms for their guests.

"Will they ever get here?" Mary murmured to herself, when at last the two rooms lay neat and ready, with a warm fire in each, and she could allow herself to open the front door again, an inch or two, and look out into the weather. Nothing to be seen but the whirling snow-flakes. The horrid fancy seized her that Hester had really been in that carriage and had turned back at their very door. So that again Richard, arriving weary and heart-stricken, would be disappointed. Mary's bitterness grew.

But all that could be done was to listen to every sound without, in the hope of catching something else than the roaring of the wind, and to give the rein to speculation and dismay.

Catharine sat waiting, in her chair, the tears welling silently. It touched her profoundly that Hester, in her sudden despair, should have thought of coming to her; though apparently it was a project she had not carried out. All her deep heart of compassion yearned over the lost, unhappy one. Oh, to bring her comfort!—to point her to the only help and hope in the arms of an all-pitying God. Catharine knew much more of Meryon's history and antecedents—from Meynell—than did Mary. She was convinced that the marriage, if there had been a marriage, had been a bogus one, and that the disgrace was irreparable. But in her stern, rich nature, now that the culprit had turned from her sin, there was not a thought of condemnation; only a yearning pity, an infinite tenderness.

At last toward nine o'clock there were steps on the garden path. Mary flew to the door. In the porch there stood the old shepherd from the Bridge Farm. His hat, beard, and shoulders were heavy with snow, and his face shone like a red wrinkled apple, in the light of the hall lamp.

"Beg your pardon, miss, but I've just coom from helpin' Tyson to get his sheep in. Varra careless of him to ha' left it so long!—aw mine wor safe i't' fold by fower o'clock. An' I thowt, miss, as I'd mak bold, afore goin' back to t' farm, to coom an' ast yo, if t' yoong leddy got safe hoam this afternoon? I wor a bit worritted, for I thowt I saw her on t' Mardale Head path, juist afther I got hoam, from t' field abuve t' Bridge Farm, an' it wor noan weather for a stranger, miss, yo unnerstan', to be oot on t' fells, and it gettin' so black—"

"What young lady?" cried Mary. "Oh, come in, please."

And she drew him hurriedly into the sitting-room, where Catharine had already sprung to her feet in terror. There they questioned him. Yes—they had been expecting a lady. When had he seen her?—the young lady he spoke of? What was she like? In what direction had she gone? He answered their questions as clearly as he could, his own honest face growing steadily longer and graver.

And all the time he carried, unconsciously, something heavy in his hand, on the top of which the snow had settled. Presently Mary perceived it.

"Sit down, please!" she pushed a chair toward him. "You must be tired out! And let me take that—"

She held out her hand. The old man looked down—recollecting.

"That's noan o' mine, miss. I—"

Catharine cried out—

"It's hers! It's Hester's!"

She took the bag from Mary, and shook the snow from it. It was a small dressing-bag of green leather and on it appeared the initials—"H. F.-W."

They looked at each other speechless. The old man hastened to explain that on opening the gate which led to the house from the lane his foot had stumbled against something on the path. By the light of his lantern he had seen it was a bag of some sort, had picked it up and brought it in.

"She was in the carriage!" said Mary, under her breath, "and must have just pushed this inside the gate before—"

Before she went to her death? Was that what would have to be added? For there was horror in both their minds. The mountains at the head of Long Whindale run up to no great height, but there are plenty of crags on them with a sheer drop of anything from fifty to a hundred feet. Ten or twenty feet would be quite enough to disable an exhausted girl. Five hours since she was last seen!—and since the storm began; four hours, at least, since thick darkness had descended on the valley.

"We must do something at once." Catharine addressed the old man in quick, resolute tones. "We must get a party together."

But as she spoke there were further sounds outside—of trampling feet and voices—vying with the storm. Mary ran into the hall. Two figures appeared in the porch in the light of the lamp as she held it up, with a third behind them, carrying luggage. In front stood Meynell, and an apparently fainting woman, clinging to and supported by his arm.

"Help me with this lady, please!" said Meynell, peremptorily, not recognizing who it was holding the light. "This last little climb has been too much for her. Alice!—just a few steps more!"

And bending over his charge, he lifted the frail form over the threshold, and saw, as he did so, that he was placing her in Mary's arms.

"She is absolutely worn out," he said, drawing quick breath, while all his face relaxed in a sudden, irrepressible joy. "But she would come." Then, in a lower voice—"Is Hester here?" Mary shook her head, and something in her eyes warned him of fresh calamity. He stooped suddenly to look at Alice, and perceived that she was quite unconscious. He and Mary, between them, raised her and carried her into the sitting-room. Then, while Mary ministered to her, Meynell grasped Catharine's hand—with the brusque question—

"What has happened?"

Catharine beckoned to old David, the shepherd, and she, with David and Meynell, went across, out of hearing, into the tiny dining-room of the cottage. Meanwhile the horses and man who had brought the travellers from Whinborough had to be put up for the night, for the man would not venture the return journey.

Meynell had soon heard what there was to tell. He himself was gray with fatigue and sleeplessness; but there was no time to think of that.

"What men can we get?" he asked of the shepherd.

Old David ruminated, and finally suggested the two sons of the farmer across the lane, his own master, the young tenant of the Bridge Farm, and the cowman from the same farm.

"And the Lord knaws I'd goa wi you myself, sir"—said the fine-featured old man, a touch of trouble in his blue eyes—"for I feel soomhow as though there were a bit o' my fault in it. But we've had a heavy job on t' fells awready, an I should be noa good to you."

He went over to the neighbouring farm, to recruit some young men, and presently returned with them, the driver, also, from Whinborough, a stalwart Westmoreland lad, eager to help.

Meanwhile Meynell had snatched some food at Catharine's urgent entreaty, and had stood a moment in the sitting-room, his hand in Mary's, looking down upon the just reviving Alice.

"She's been a plucky woman," he said, with emotion; "but she's about at the end of her tether." And in a few brief sentences he described the agitated pursuit of the last fortnight; the rapid journeys, prompted now by this clue, now by that; the alternate hopes and despairs; with no real information of any kind, till Hester's telegram, sent originally to Upcote and reforwarded, had reached Meynell in Paris, just as they had returned thither for a fresh consultation with the police at headquarters.

As the sound of men's feet in the kitchen broke in upon the hurried narrative, and Meynell was leaving the room, Alice opened her eyes.

"Hester?" The pale lips just breathed the name.

"We've heard of her." Meynell stooped to the questioner. "It's a real clue this time. She's not far away. But don't ask any more now. Let Mrs. Elsmere take you to bed—and there'll be more news in the morning."

She made a feeble sign of assent.

A quarter of an hour later all was ready, and Mary stood again in the porch, holding the lamp high for the departure of the rescuers. There were five men with lanterns, ropes, and poles, laden, besides, with blankets, and everything else that Catharine's practical sense could suggest. Old David would go with the rest as far as the Bridge Farm.

The snow was still coming down in a stealthy and abundant fall, but the wind showed some signs of abating.

"They'll find it easier goin', past t' bridge, than it would ha' been an hour since," said old David to Mary, pitying the white anxiety of her face. She thanked him with a smile, and then while he marched ahead, she put down the lamp and leant her head a moment against Meynell's shoulder, and he kissed her hair.

Down went the little procession to the main road. Through the lane the lights wavered, and presently, standing at the kitchen window, Catharine and Mary could watch them dancing up the dale, now visible, now vanishing. It must be at least, and at best, two or three hours before the party reappeared; it might be much more. They turned from useless speculation to give all their thoughts to Alice Puttenham.

Too exhausted to speak or think, she was passive in their hands. She was soon in bed, in a deep sleep, and Mary, having induced her mother to lie down in the sitting-room, and having made up fires throughout the house, sent the servants to bed, and herself began her watch in Alice Puttenham's room.

Dreary and long, the night passed away. Once or twice through the waning storm Mary heard the deep bell of the little church, tolling the hours; once or twice she went hurriedly downstairs thinking there were steps in the garden, only to meet her mother in the hall, on the same bootless errand. At last, worn with thinking and praying, she fell fitfully asleep, and woke to find moonlight shining through the white blind in Alice Puttenham's room. She drew aside the blind and saw with a shock of surprise that the storm was over; the valley lay pure white under a waning moon just dipping to the western fells; the clouds were upfurling; and only the last echoes of the gale were dying through the bare, snow-laden trees that fringed the stream. It was four o'clock. Six hours, since the rescue party had started. Alack!—they must have had far to seek.

Suddenly—out of the dark bosom of the valley, lights emerged. Mary sprang to her feet. Yes! it was they—it was Richard returning.

One look at the bed, where the delicate pinched face still lay high on the pillows, drenched in a sleep which was almost a swoon, and Mary stole out of the room.

There was time to complete their preparations and renew the fires. When Catharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready—warm blankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly dared speak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came the sound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of the gate leading into the garden. Four men entered, carrying something. Meynell walked in front with the lantern.

As he saw the open door, he hurried forward. They read what he had to say in his haggard look before he spoke.

"We found her a long way up the pass. She has had a bad fall—but she is alive. That's all one can say. The exposure alone might have killed her. She hasn't spoken—not a word. That good fellow"—he nodded toward the Whinborough lad who had brought them from, the station—"will take one of his horses and go for the doctor. We shall get him here in a couple of hours."

Silently they brought her in, the stalwart, kindly men, they mounted the cottage stairs, and on Mary' bed they laid her down.

O crushed and wounded youth! The face, drawn and fixed in pain, was marble-cold and marble-white; the delicate mire-stained hands hung helpless. Masses of drenched hair fell about the neck and bosom; and there was a wound on the temple which had been bandaged, but was now bleeding afresh. Catharine bent over her in an anguish, feeling for pulse and heart. Meynell, whispering, pointed out that the right leg was broken below the knee. He himself had put it in some rough splints, made out of the poles the shepherds were carrying.

Both Catharine and Mary had ambulance training, and, helped by their two maids, they did all they could. They cut away the soaked clothes. They applied warmth in every possible form; they got down some spoonfuls of warm milk and brandy, dreading always to hear the first sounds of consciousness and pain.

They came at last—the low moans of one coming terribly back to life.
Meynell returned to the room, and knelt by her.

"Hester—dear child!—you are quite safe—we are all here—the doctor will be coming directly."

His tone was tender as a woman's. His ghostly face, disfigured by exhaustion, showed him absorbed in pity. Mary, standing near, longed to kneel down by him, and weep; but there was an austere sense that not even she must interrupt the moment of recognition.

At last it came. Hester opened her eyes—

"Uncle Richard?—Is that Uncle Richard?"

A long silence, broken by moaning, while Meynell knelt there, watching her, sometimes whispering to her.

At last she said, "I couldn't face you all. I'm dying." She moved her right hand restlessly. "Give me something for this pain—I—I can't stand it."

"Dear Hester—can you bear it a little longer? We will do all we can. We have sent for the doctor. He has a motor. He will be here very soon."

"I don't want to live. I want to stop the pain. Uncle Richard!"

"Yes, dear Hester."

"I hate Philip—now."

"It's best not to talk of him, dear. You want all your strength."

"No—I must. There's not much time. I suppose—I've—I've made you very unhappy?"

"Yes—but now we have you again—our dear, dear Hester."

"You can't care. And I—can't say—I'm sorry. Don't you remember?"

His face quivered. He understood her reference to the long fits of naughtiness of her childhood, when neither nurse, nor governess, nor "Aunt Alice" could ever get out of her the stereotyped words "I'm sorry." But he could not trust himself to speak. And it seemed as though she understood his silence, for she feebly moved her uninjured hand toward him; and he raised it to his lips.

"Did I fall—a long way? I don't recollect—anything."

"You had a bad fall, my poor child. Be brave!—the doctor will help you."

He longed to speak to her of her mother, to tell her the truth. It was borne in upon him that he must tell her—if she was to die; that in the last strait, Alice's arms must be about her. But the doctor must decide.

Presently, she was a little easier. The warm stimulant dulled the consciousness which came in gusts.

Once or twice, as she recognized the faces near her, there was a touch of life, even of mockery. There was a moment when she smiled at Catharine—

"You're sweet. You won't say—'I told you so'!"

In one of the intervals when she seemed to have lapsed again into unconsciousness Meynell reported something of the search. They had found her a long distance from the path, at the foot of a steep and rocky scree, some twenty or thirty feet high, down which she must have slipped headlong. There she had lain for some eight hours in the storm before they found her. She neither moved nor spoke when they discovered her, nor had there been any sign of life, beyond the faint beating of the pulse, on the journey down.

The pale dawn was breaking when the doctor arrived. His verdict was at first not without hope. She might live; if there were no internal injuries of importance. The next few hours would show. He sent his motor back to Whinborough Cottage Hospital for a couple of nurses, and prepared, himself, to stay the greater part of the day. He had just gone downstairs to speak to Meynell, and Catharine was sitting by the bed, when Hester once more roused herself.

"How that man hurt me!—don't let him come in again."

Then, in a perfectly hard, clear voice, she added imperiously—"I want to see my mother."

Catharine stooped toward her, in an agitation she found it difficult to conceal.

"Dear Hester!—we are sending a telegram as soon as the post-office is open to Lady Fox-Wilton."

Hester moved her hand impatiently.

"She's not my mother, and I'm glad. Where is—my mother?" She laid a strange, deep emphasis on the word, opening her eyes wide and threateningly. Catharine understood at once that, in some undiscovered way, she knew what they had all been striving to keep from her. It was no time for questioning. Catharine rose quietly.

"She is here, Hester, I will go and tell her."

Leaving one of the maids in charge, Catharine ran down to the doctor, who gave a reluctant consent, lest more harm should come of refusing the interview than of granting it. And as Catharine ran up again to Mary's room she had time to reflect, with self-reproach, on the strange completeness with which she at any rate had forgotten that frail ineffectual woman asleep in Mary's room from the moment of Hester's arrival till now.

But Mary had not forgotten her. When Catharine opened the door, it was to see a thin, phantom-like figure, standing fully dressed, and leaning on Mary's arm. Catharine went up to her with tears, and kissed her, holding her hands close.

"Hester asks for you—for her mother—her real mother. She knows."

"She knows?" Alice stood paralyzed a moment, gazing at Catharine. Then the colour rushed back into her face. "I am coming—I am coming—at once," she said impetuously. "I am quite strong. Don't help me, please. And—let me go in alone. I won't do her harm. If you—and Mary—would stand by the door—I would call in a moment—if—"

They agreed. She went with tottering steps across the landing. On the threshold, Catharine paused; Mary remained a little behind. Alice went in and shut the door.

The blinds in Hester's room were up, and the snow-covered fells rising steeply above the house filled it with a wintry, reflected light; a dreary light, that a large fire could not dispel. On the white bed lay Hester, breathing quickly and shallowly; bright colour now in each sunken cheek. The doctor himself had cut off a great part of her hair—her glorious hair. The rest fell now in damp golden curls about her slender neck, beneath the cap-like bandage which hid the forehead and temples and gave her the look of a young nun. At first sight of her, Alice knew that she was doomed. Do what she would, she could not restrain the low cry which the sight tore from the depths of life.

Hester feebly beckoned. Alice came near, and took the right hand in hers, while Hester smiled, her eyelids fluttering. "Mother!"—she said, so as scarcely to be heard—and then again—"Mother!"

Alice sank down beside her with a sob, and without a word they gazed into each other's eyes. Slowly Hester's filled with tears. But Alice's were dry. In her face there was as much ecstasy as anguish. It was the first look that Hester's soul had ever given her. All the past was in it; and that strange sense, on both sides, that there was no future.

At last Alice murmured:

"How did you know?"

"Philip told me."

The girl stopped abruptly. It had been on her tongue to say—"It was that made me go with him."

But she did not say it. And while Alice's mind, rushing miserably over the past, was trying to piece together some image of what had happened, Hester began to talk intermittently about the preceding weeks. Alice tried to stop her; but to thwart her only produced a restless excitement, and she had her way.

She spoke of Philip with horror, yet with a perfectly clear sense of her own responsibility.

"I needn't have gone—but I would go. There was a devil in me—that wanted to know. Now I know—too much. I'm glad it's over. This life isn't worth while—not for me."

So, from these lips of eighteen, came the voice of the world's old despairs!

Presently she asked peremptorily for Meynell, and he came to her.

"Uncle Richard, I want to be sure"—she spoke strongly and in her natural voice—"am I Philip's wife—or—or not? We were married on January 25th, at the Mairie of the 10th Arrondissement, by a man in a red scarf. We signed registers and things. Then—when we quarrelled—Philip said—he wasn't certain about that woman—in Scotland. You might be right. Tell me the truth, please. Am I—his wife?"

And as the words dropped faintly, the anxiety in her beautiful death-stricken eyes was strange and startling to see. Through all her recklessness, her defiance of authority and custom, could be seen at last the strength of inherited, implanted things; the instinct of a race, a family, overleaping deviation.

Meynell bent over her steadily, and took her hand in both his own.

"Certainly, you are his wife. Have no anxiety at all about that. My inquiries all broke down. There was no Scotch marriage."

Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Alice on the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it not only forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he had received conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester was merely Philip's victim, not his wife? Passionately her heart thanked him for the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were not all bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment. Meynell's strong words—his "noble lie"—had lifted, as it were, a fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space—a freedom, in which the spirit could move.

So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous stress laid at such a moment, by one so lawless, on the social law!

Thenceforward the poor sufferer was touchingly gentle and amenable. Morphia had been given her liberally, and the relief was great. When the nurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. They could do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to those who loved her.

In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynell administered it. The three women who were watching her received it with her. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred bread and wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him had vanished, burnt away by sheer heat of feeling. There was no difference! Words became mere transparencies, through which shone the ineffable.

When it was over, Hester opened her eyes—"Uncle Richard!" The voice was only a whisper now. "You loved my father?"

"I loved him dearly—and you—and your mother—for his sake."

He stooped to kiss her cheek.

"I wonder what it'll be like"—she said, after a moment, with more strength—"beyond? How strange that—I shall know before you! Uncle Richard—I'm—I'm sorry!"

At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But she was beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on the sheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:

"I don't hate—even Philip now. I—I forget him. Mother!" And again she clung to her mother's hand, feebly turning her face to be kissed.

Once she opened her eyes when Mary was beside her, and smiled brightly.

"I've been such a trouble, Mary—I've spoilt Uncle Richard's life. But now you'll have him all the time—and he'll have you. You dear!—Kiss me. You've got a golden mother. Take care of mine—won't you?—my poor mother!"

So the hours wore on. Science was clever and merciful and eased her pain. Love encompassed her, and when the wintry light failed, her faintly beating heart failed with it, and all was still….

"Richard!—Richard!—Come with me."

So, with low, tender words, Mary tried to lead him away, after that trance of silence in which they had all been standing round the dead. He yielded to her; he was ready to see the doctor and to submit to the absolute rest enjoined. But already there was something in his aspect which terrified Mary. Through the night that followed, as she lay awake, a true instinct told her that the first great wrestle of her life and her love was close upon her.