If there were two desert-traversers, or more than two, making for the well, friendship would not hold one back, push another forward.

Race!--and if the well was but to one, then let fate and Allah approve the swiftest! Under such circumstances would not Alexander outdo him if he might?
He was willing to believe so.
Glenfernie said himself that the girl did not know if she cared for him.

If, then, the well was not for him, anyway ?...

_Where was the wrong ?_ Now Ian believed in his own power and easy might and pleasantness and, on the whole, goodness--believed, too, in the love of Alexander for him, love that he had tried before, and it held.

_And if he made love to Elspeth Barrow need old Steadfast ever know it ?_ And, finally, and perhaps, unacknowledged to himself, from the first, he turned to that cabinet of his heart where was the vial made of pride, that held the drop of malice.