you, if--if--" He broke off. "You know, as I said before, Dinah and I are
pals," he ended wistfully.

"Of course I will, lad. Of course I will." Scott wrung his hand hard.
"But we'll pull her through, please God! We must pull her through."

"If anyone can, you will," said Billy with conviction.

Like Dinah, he had caught a glimpse in that brief conversation of the
soul that inhabited that weak and puny form.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE WAY BACK


It was three days later that Dinah began at last the long and weary
pilgrimage back again. Almost against her will she turned her faltering
steps up the steep ascent; for she was too tired for any sustained
effort. Only that something seemed to be perpetually drawing her she
would not have been moved to make the effort at all. For she was so
piteously weak that the bare exertion of opening her eyes was almost more
than she could accomplish. But ever the unknown influence urged her, very
gently but very persistently, never passive, never dormant, but always
drawing her as by an invisible cord back to the world of sunshine and
tears that seemed so very far away from the land of shadows in which she
wandered.