No, nor at the crooking of my finger. Christ, how near it was. As I look back the days of our flight assume a dreadful air. Fearful and violent, they belong to destruction. With death eager in our hands we fled from death.

‘Terry—’ I began hoarsely. She paused from binding his face with a handkerchief and closing his eyes. She laid her hand softly on mine.

‘Hugh,’ she answered.

‘Terry!’ I broke out, striving in vain to speak, but the best I could say was, ‘If I hadn’t you—if I hadn’t you—’

‘But you have me and I’m with you,’ she murmured. I sank my head on her hands, on the bed where he lay.

‘Hush, hush, my child,’ she said. ‘We’ve left the past behind us—see! I can smile, look at my face, I’ve no fear.’

Her face was radiant. I could not escape so soon from thinking of the past. I knew that nothing could ever destroy my knowledge that I alone would never have escaped from the rage of the past. Not like this our sole guest, not gentle and broken like him, but as a wolf, I’d have killed, and died. How can she help me to escape knowing that when every word she speaks convinces me more surely of what I’d be, if she were not with me?

I’ll bury him in the valley. His eyes are closed. She smoothed his brow and cheeks. Why do we whisper in our cave? He can’t hear and death doesn’t listen. Death makes his face noble.

I said, ‘I thought you were going to die of cold and tiredness. I was mad with fear, Terry.’

‘I thought that fire would never burn up,’ she confessed. ‘We must get ready soon, Hugh. What can we take with us? We can’t carry all I’d like to bring.’

She is busy while I write, recalling yesterday, when we came home, and the day before yesterday, when we fled. We came to the wood by Loch Ericht. I had scarcely energy to gather sticks or strength to break them. The branches of the wood were sodden with rain. We made a fire at last. Terry crouched over it, shivering and trembling like one ague-struck. We could not eat for cold. Night encompassed us with dangerous shadow. We jumped when a bird cried or the waves of the loch made a sudden plash.

Our fire smouldered as if never to take, but at length a resinous branch kindled and a blaze flared up. It revealed large flakes of snow drifting slowly on the wind.

‘Snow!’ Terry cried aghast.

‘Snow!’ I echoed. ‘It might have come more timely, with all the other days of the year to chose from. What new misfortune must we suffer?’ I asked bitterly.

‘It might have come more untimely, Hugh,’ she answered, ‘and showed our footsteps.’