At last the descent moderated, and Grace rejoined him.
Then they kept in the hollow for some time, but at last found another acclivity to mount: they toiled up it, laden with snow, yet perspiring profusely with the exertion of toiling uphill through heather clogged with heavy snow.
They reached the summit, and began to descend again.

But now their hearts began to quake.

Men had been lost on Cairnhope before to-day, and never found alive: and they were lost on Cairnhope; buried in the sinuosities of the mountain, and in a tremendous snowstorm.
They wandered and staggered, sick at heart; since each step might be for the worse.
They wandered and staggered, miserably; and the man began to sigh, and the woman to cry.
At last they were so exhausted, they sat down in despair: and, in a few minutes, they were a couple of snow-heaps.
Mr.Coventry was the first to see all the danger they ran by this course.
"For God's sake, let us go on!" he said; "if we once get benumbed, we are lost.

We MUST keep moving, till help comes to us." Then they staggered, and stumbled on again, till they both sank into a deep snow-drift.
They extricated themselves, but, oh, when they felt that deep cold snow all round them, it was a foretaste of the grave.
The sun had set, it was bitterly cold, and still the enormous flakes fell, and doubled the darkness of the night.
They staggered and stumbled on, not now with any hope of extricating themselves from the fatal mountain, but merely to keep the blood alive in their veins.

And, when they were exhausted, they sat down, and soon were heaps of snow.
While they sat thus, side by side, thinking no more of love, or any other thing but this: should they ever see the sun rise, or sit by a fireside again?
suddenly they heard a sound in the air behind them, and, in a moment, what seemed a pack of hounds in full cry passed close over their heads.
They uttered a loud cry.
"We are saved!" cried Grace.