THE YELLOW DOVE
was the hope that Wilson had obeyed orders and kept Lady Heathcote in ignorance of her absence.
She was startled by her horse which, without moving, had stretched his neck and whinnied loudly. He, too, had realized the aimlessness of their wanderings and wanted the warm stalls at the Kilmorack stables. Doris tried to think what was best to do. All sense of direction was gone and she was beyond even the sound of the sea. At last she decided to try a slight eminence and see if she could make out the bulk of Ben-a-Chielt, but a mist had fallen, and when she reached the height she was no wiser than before. Fortunately, it was not cold, and if she did not fall from the saddle in utter weariness, daylight would show her a way. She got down from her horse and, fastening him to a bush, walked to and fro to keep awake, waiting for the day, for at sunrise she could make her way toward the east until she reached the coast, after which by following the cliffs to the right she would reach the Lodge, and from there the way to Kilmorack House.
She had grown accustomed to the silences and now and then paused in her pacing to stop and listen. She thought she heard a sound different from the others—behind her it seemed, a subdued murmur, which, as she listened, grew in intensity until she clearly made it out to be the quick reverberations of a motor, running with its cut-out open. It was coming fast, and in a moment a long fan of light shot across the sky from below the brow of a distant hill and then fell suddenly to earth, where it picked out the shapes of trees and bushes along what appeared to be its road. The motor was not traveling toward her, but at an angle which would make it pass near her, but
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