He turned to the stairs and went up them in great leaps, leaving the little group below to carry out his orders.
There was a momentary inaction after his departure, then Scott limped across to the door and opened it. Thick darkness met him, the clammy darkness of fog, and the faint, faint rustle of falling snow.
He closed the door and turned back, meeting the Colonel's eyes, "It's hard to stay behind, sir," he said.
The Colonel nodded. He liked Scott. "Yes, infernally hard. But we'll do all we can. Will you find the doctor and get the necessaries together? I'll see to the rest."
"Very good, sir; I will." Scott went to the old woman who still sobbed piteously into her apron. "Come along, Biddy! There's plenty to be done. Miss Isabel's room must be quite ready for her when she comes back, and Miss Bathurst's too. We shall want boiling water--lots of it. That's your job. Come along!"
He urged her gently to the stairs, and went up with her, holding her arm.
At the top she stopped and gave him an anguished look. "Ah, Master Scott darlint, will the Almighty be merciful? Will He bring her safe back again?"
He drew her gently on. "That's another thing you can do, Biddy," he said. "Ask Him!"
And before his look Biddy commanded herself and grew calmer. "Faith, Master Scott," she said, "if it isn't yourself that's taught me the greatest lesson of all!"
A very compassionate smile shone in Scott's eyes as he passed on and left her. "Poor old Biddy," he murmured, as he went. "It's easy to preach to such as you. But, O God, there's no denying it's bitter work for those who stay behind!"
He knew that he and Biddy were destined to drink that cup of bitterness to the dregs ere the night passed.
The darkness of the night lay like a black pall upon the mountain. The snow was falling thickly, and ever more thickly. It drifted in upon Dinah, as she crouched in the shelter of an empty shed that had been placed on that high slope for the protection of sheep from the spring storms. They had come upon this shelter just as the gloom had become too great for even Isabel to regard further progress as possible, and in response to the girl's insistence they had crept in to rest. They had lost the beaten track long since; neither of them had realized when. But the certainty that they had done so had had its effect upon Isabel. Her energies had flagged from the moment that it had dawned upon her. A deadly tiredness had come over her, a feebleness so complete that Dinah had had difficulty in getting her into the shelter. Return was utterly out of the question. They were hopelessly lost, and to wander in that densely falling snow was to court disaster.