CHAPTER VIII

Yours, dear Jane,Gratefully and affectionately,Myra Ingleby.

Yours, dear Jane,

Gratefully and affectionately,

Myra Ingleby.

Letter from the Honourable Mrs. Dalmain to Lady Ingleby.

Castle Gleneesh, N. B.

Castle Gleneesh, N. B.

My Dear Myra,

No, I have not the smallest objection to representing rice pudding, or anything else plain and wholesome, providing I agree with you, and suffice for the need of the moment.

I am indeed glad to have so good a report. It proves Deryck right in his diagnosis and prescription. Keep to the latter faithfully, in every detail.

I am much interested in your account of your fellow-guests at the Moorhead Inn. No, I do not misunderstand your letter; nor do I credit you with any foolish sentimentality, or Susie-like flutterings. Jim Airth stands to you for an abstract thing—uncompromising manhood, in its strength and assurance; very attractive after the loneliness and sense of being cut adrift, which have been your portion lately. Only, remember—where living men and women are concerned, the safely abstract is apt suddenly to become the perilously personal; and your future happiness may be seriously involved, before you realise the danger. I confess, I fail to understand the man’s avoidance of you. He sounds the sort of fellow who would be friendly and pleasant toward all women, and passionately loyal to one. Perhaps you, with your sweet loveliness—a fact, my dear, notwithstanding the observationsin the Park, of Miss Amelia’s crony!—may remind him of some long-closed page of past history, and he may shrink from the pain of a consequent turning of memory’s leaves. No doubt Miss Susannah recalls some nice old maiden-aunt, and he can afford to respond to her blandishments.

What you say of the way in which Americans know our standard authors, reminds me of a fellow-passenger on board theBaltic, on our outward voyage—a charming woman, from Hartford, Connecticut, who sat beside us at meals. She had been spending five months in Europe, travelling incessantly, and finished up with London—her first visit to our capital—expecting to be altogether too tired to enjoy it; but found it a place of such abounding interest and delight, that life went on with fresh zest, and fatigue was forgotten. “Every street,” she explained, “is so familiar. We have never seen them before, and yet they are more familiar than the streets of our native cities. It is the London of Dickens and of Thackeray. We know it all. We recognisethe streets as we come to them. The places are homelike to us.We have known them all our lives.” I enjoyed this tribute to our English literature. But I wonder, my dear Myra, how many streets, east of Temple Bar, in our dear old London, are “homelike” to you!

Garth insists upon sending you at once a selection of his favourites from among the works of Dickens. So expect a bulky package before long. You might read them aloud to the Miss Murgatroyds, while they knit and wind wool.

Garth thoroughly enjoyed our trip to America. You know why we went? Since he lost his sight, all sounds mean so much to him. He is so boyishly eager to hear all there is to be heard in the world. Any possibility of a new sound-experience fills him with enthusiastic expectation, and away we go! He set his heart upon hearing the thunderous roar of Niagara, so off we went, by the White Star Line. His enjoyment was complete, when at last he stood close to the HorseshoeFall, on the Canadian side, with his hand on the rail at the place where the spray showers over you, and the great rushing boom seems all around. And as we stood there together, a little bird on a twig beside us, began to sing!—Garth is putting it all into a symphony.

How true is what you say of the genial friendliness of Americans! I was thinking it over, on our homeward voyage. It seems to me, that, as a rule, they are so far less self-conscious than we. Their minds are fully at liberty to go out at once, in keenest appreciation and interest, to meet a new acquaintance. Our senseless British greeting: “How do you do?”—that everlasting question, which neither expects nor awaits an answer,canonly lead to trite remarks about the weather; whereas America’s “I am happy to meet you, Mrs. Dalmain,” or “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Ingleby,” is an open door, through which we pass at once to fuller friendliness. Too often, in the moment of introduction, the reserved British nature turns in upon itself, sensitively debating whatimpression it is making; nervously afraid of being too expansive; fearful of giving itself away. But, as I said, the American mind comes forth to meet us with prompt interest and appreciative expectation; and we make more friends, in that land of ready sympathies, in half an hour, than we do in half a year of our own stiff social functions. Perhaps you will put me down as biassed in my opinion. Well, they were wondrous good to Garth and me; and we depend so greatly upon peoplesayingexactly the right thing at the right moment. When friendly looks cannot be seen, tactful words become more than ever a necessity.

Yes, little Geoff’s eyes are bright and shining, and the true golden brown. In many other ways he is very like his father.

Garth sends his love, and promises you a special accompaniment to the “Blackbird’s Song,” such as can easily be played with one finger!

It seems so strange to address this envelope to Mrs. O’Mara. It reminds me of a time when I dropped my own identity and usedanother woman’s name. I only wish your experiment might end as happily as mine.

Ah, Myra dearest, there is a Best for every life! Sometimes we can only reach it by a rocky path or along a thorny way; and those who fear the pain, come to it not at all. But such of us as have attained, can testify that it is worth while. From all you have told me lately, I gather the Best has not yet come your way. Keep on expecting. Do not be content with less.

We certainly must not let Deryck know that Jim Airth—what a nice name—was at Targai. He would move you on, promptly.

Report again next week; and do abide, if necessary, beneath the safe chaperonage of the cameo brooch.

Yours, in all fidelity,Jane Dalmain.

Yours, in all fidelity,

Jane Dalmain.

CHAPTER VIIIIN HORSESHOE COVE

Lady Ingleby sat in the honeysuckle arbour, pouring her tea from a little brown earthenware teapot, and spreading substantial slices of home-made bread with the creamiest of farm butter, when the aged postman hobbled up to the garden gate of the Moorhead Inn, with a letter for Mrs. O’Mara.

For a moment she could scarcely bring herself to open an envelope bearing another name than her own. Then, smiling at her momentary hesitation, she tore it open with the keen delight of one, who, accustomed to a dozen letters a day, has passed a week without receiving any.

She read Mrs. Dalmain’s letter through rapidly; and once she laughed aloud; and once a sudden colour flamed into her cheeks.

Then she laid it down, and helped herself to honey—real heather-honey, golden in the comb.

She took up her letter again, and read it carefully, weighing each word.

Then:—“Good old Jane!” she said; “that is rather neatly put: the ‘safely abstract’ becoming the ‘perilously personal.’ She has acquired the knack of terse and forceful phraseology from her long friendship with the doctor. I can do it myself, when I try; only,mySir Derycky sentences are apt merely to sound well, and mean nothing at all. And—after all—doesthis of Jane’s mean anything worthy of consideration? Could six foot five of abstraction—eating its breakfast in complete unconsciousness of one’s presence, returning one’s timid ‘good-morning’ with perfunctory politeness, and relegating one, while still debating the possibility of venturing a remark on the weather, to obvious oblivion—ever become perilously personal?”

Lady Ingleby laughed again, returned the letter to its envelope, and proceeded to cutherself a slice of home-made currant cake. As she finished it, with a final cup of tea, she thought with amusement of the difference between this substantial meal in the honeysuckle arbour of the old inn garden, and the fashionable teas then going on in crowded drawing-rooms in town, where people hurried in, took a tiny roll of thin bread-and-butter, and a sip at luke-warm tea, which had stood sufficiently long to leave an abiding taste of tannin; heard or imparted a few more or less detrimental facts concerning mutual friends; then hurried on elsewhere, to a cucumber sandwich, colder tea, which had stood even longer, and a fresh instalment of gossip.

“Oh, why do we do it?” mused Lady Ingleby. Then, taking up her scarlet parasol, she crossed the little lawn, and stood at the garden gate, in the afternoon sunlight, debating in which direction she should go.

Usually her walks took her along the top of the cliffs, where the larks, springing from the short turf and clumps of waving harebells, sang themselves up into the sky. She lovedbeing high above the sea, and hearing the distant thunder of the breakers on the rocks below.

But to-day the steep little street, down through the fishing village, to the cove, looked inviting. The tide was out, and the sands gleamed golden.

Also, from her seat in the arbour, she had seen Jim Airth’s tall figure go swinging along the cliff edge, silhouetted against the clear blue of the sky. And one sentence in the letter she had just received, made this into a factor which turned her feet toward the shore.

The friendly Cornish folk, sitting on their doorsteps in the sunshine, smiled at the lovely woman in white serge, who passed down their village street, so tall and graceful, beneath the shade of her scarlet parasol. An item in the doctor’s prescription had been the discarding of widow’s weeds, and it had seemed quite natural to Myra to come down to her first Cornish breakfast in a cream serge gown.

Arrived at the shore, she turned in the direction she usually took when up above,and walked quickly along the firm smooth sand; pausing occasionally to pick up a beautifully marked stone, or to examine a brilliant sea-anemone or gleaming jelly-fish, left stranded by the tide.

Presently she reached a place where the cliff jutted out toward the sea; and, climbing over slippery rocks, studded with shining pools in which crimson seaweed waved, crabs scudded sideways from her passing shadow, and darting shrimps flicked across and buried themselves hastily in the sand, Myra found herself in a most fascinating cove. The line of cliff here made a horseshoe, not quite half a mile in length. The little bay, within this curve, was a place of almost fairy-like beauty; the sand a soft glistening white, decked with delicate crimson seaweed. The cliffs, towering up above, gave welcome shadow to the shore; yet the sun behind them still gleamed and sparkled on the distant sea.

Myra walked to the centre of the horseshoe; then, picking up a piece of driftwood, scooped out a comfortable hollow in the sand, about adozen yards from the foot of the cliff; stuck her open parasol up behind it, to shield herself from the observation, from above, of any chance passer-by; and, settling comfortably into the soft hollow, lay back, watching, through half-closed lids, the fleeting shadows, the blue sky, the gently moving sea. Little white clouds blushed rosy red. An opal tint gleamed on the water. The moving ripple seemed too far away to break the restful silence.

Lady Ingleby’s eyelids drooped lower and lower.

“Yes, my dear Jane,” she murmured, dreamily watching a snow-white sail, as it rounded the point, curtseyed, and vanished from view; “undoubtedly a—a well-expressed sentence; but far from—from—being fact. The safely abstract could hardly require—a—a—a cameo——”

The long walk, the sea breeze, the distant lapping of the water—all these combined had done their soothing work.

Lady Ingleby slept peacefully in Horseshoe Cove; and the rising tide crept in.

CHAPTER IXJIM AIRTH TO THE RESCUE

An hour later, a man swung along the path at the summit of the cliffs, whistling like a blackbird.

The sun was setting; and, as he walked, he revelled in the gold and crimson of the sky; in the opal tints upon the heaving sea.

The wind had risen as the sun set, and breakers were beginning to pound along the shore.

Suddenly something caught his eye, far down below.

“By Jove!” he said. “A scarlet poppy on the sands!”

He walked on, until his rapid stride brought him to the centre of the cliff above Horseshoe Cove.

Then—“Good Lord!” said Jim Airth, and stood still.

He had caught sight of Lady Ingleby’s white skirt reposing on the sand, beyond the scarlet parasol.

“Good Lord!” said Jim Airth.

Then he scanned the horizon. Not a boat to be seen.

His quick eye travelled along the cliff, the way he had come. Not a living thing in sight.

On to the fishing village. Faint threads of ascending vapour indicated chimneys. “Two miles at least,” muttered Jim Airth. “I could not run it and get back with a boat, under three quarters of an hour.”

Then he looked down into the cove.

“Both ends cut off. The water will reach her feet in ten minutes; will sweep the base of the cliff, in twenty.”

Exactly beneath the spot where he stood, more than half way down, was a ledge about six feet long by four feet wide.

Letting himself over the edge, holding to tufts of grass, tiny shrubs, jutting stones,cracks in the surface of the sandstone, he managed to reach this narrow ledge, dropping the last ten feet, and landing on it by an almost superhuman effort of balance.

One moment he paused; carefully took its measure; then, leaning over, looked down. Sixty feet remained, a precipitous slope, with nothing to which foot could hold, or hand could cling.

Jim Airth buttoned his Norfolk jacket, and tightened his belt. Then slipping, feet foremost off the ledge, he glissaded down on his back, bending his knees at the exact moment when his feet thudded heavily on to the sand.

For a moment the shock stunned him. Then he got up and looked around.

He stood, within ten yards of the scarlet parasol, on the small strip of sand still left uncovered by the rapidly advancing sweep of the rising tide.

CHAPTER X“YEO HO, WE GO!”

“A cameo chaperonage,” murmured Lady Ingleby, and suddenly opened her eyes.

Sky and sea were still there, but between them, closer than sea or sky, looking down upon her with a tense light in his blue eyes, stood Jim Airth.

“Why, I have been asleep!” said Lady Ingleby.

“You have,” said Jim Airth; “and meanwhile the sun has set, and—the tide has come up. Allow me to assist you to rise.”

Lady Ingleby put her hand into his, and he helped her to her feet. She stood beside him gazing, with wide startled eyes, at the expanse of sea, the rushing waves, the tiny strip of sand.

“The tide seems very high,” said Lady Ingleby.

“Very high,” agreed Jim Airth. He stood close beside her, but his eyes still eagerly scanned the water. If by any chance a boat came round the point there would still be time to hail it.

“We seem to be cut off,” said Lady Ingleby.

“Wearecut off,” replied Jim Airth, laconically.

“Then I suppose we must have a boat,” said Lady Ingleby.

“An excellent suggestion,” replied Jim Airth, drily, “if a boat were to be had. But, unfortunately, we are two miles from the hamlet, and this is not a time when boats pass in and out; nor would they come this way. When I saw you, from the top of the cliff, I calculated the chances as to whether I could reach the boats, and be back here in time. But, before I could have returned with a boat, you would have—been very wet,” finished Jim Airth, somewhat lamely.

He looked at the lovely face, close to hisshoulder. It was pale and serious, but showed no sign of fear.

He glanced at the point of cliff beyond. Twenty feet above its rocky base the breakers were dashing; but round that point would be safety.

“Can you swim?” asked Jim Airth, eagerly.

Myra’s calm grey eyes met his, steadily. A gleam of amusement dawned in them.

“If you put your hand under my chin, and count ‘one—two! one—two!’ very loud and quickly, I can swim nearly ten yards,” she said.

Jim Airth laughed. His eyes met hers, in sudden comprehending comradeship. “By Jove, you’re plucky!” they seemed to say. But what he really said was: “Then swimming is no go.”

“No go, for me,” said Myra, earnestly, “nor for you, weighted by me. We should never get round that eddying whirlpool. It would merely mean that we should both be drowned. But you can easily do it alone. Oh, go at once! Go quickly! And—don’tlook back. I shall be all right. I shall just sit down against the cliff, and wait. I have always been fond of the sea.”

Jim Airth looked at her again. And, this time, open admiration shone in his keen eyes.

“Ah, brave!” he said. “A mother of soldiers! Such women make of us a fighting race.”

Myra laid her hand on his sleeve. “My friend,” she said, “it was never given me to be a mother. But I am a soldier’s daughter, and a soldier’s widow; and—I am not afraid to die. Oh, I do beg of you—give me one handclasp and go!”

Jim Airth took the hand held out, but he kept it firmly in his own.

“You shall not die,” he said, between his teeth. “Do you suppose I would leave any woman to die alone? Andyou—you, of all women!—By heaven,” he repeated, doggedly; “you shall not die. Do you think I could go; and leave—” he broke off abruptly.

Myra smiled. His hand was very strong, and her heart felt strangely restful. And hadhe not said: “You, of all women?” But, even in what seemed likely to be her last moments, Lady Ingleby’s unfailing instinct was to be tactful.

“I am sure you would leave no woman in danger,” she said; “and some, alas! might have been easier to save than I. Plump little Miss Susie would have floated.”

Jim Airth’s big laugh rang out. “And Miss Murgatroyd could have sailed away in her cameo,” he said.

Then, as if that laugh had broken the spell which held him inactive: “Come,” he cried, and drew her to the foot of the cliff; “we have not a moment to lose! Look! Do you see the way I came down? See that long slide in the sand? I tobogganed down there on my back. Pretty steep, and nothing to hold to, I admit; but not so very far up, after all. And, where my slide begins, is a blessed ledge four foot by six.” He pulled out a huge clasp-knife, opened the largest blade, and commenced hacking steps in the face of the cliff. “We must climb,” said Jim Airth.

“I have never climbed,” whispered Myra’s voice behind him.

“You must climb to-day,” said Jim Airth.

“I could never even climb trees,” whispered Myra.

“You must climb a cliff to-night. It is our only chance.”

He hacked on, rapidly.

Suddenly he paused. “Show me your reach,” he said. “Mine would not do. Put your left hand there; so. Now stretch up with your right; as high as you can, easily.... Ah! three foot six, or thereabouts. Now your left foot close to the bottom. Step up with your right, as high as you can comfortably.... Two foot, nine. Good! One step, more or less, might make all the difference, by-and-by. Now listen, while I work. What a God-send for us that there happens to be, just here, this stratum of soft sand. We should have been done for, had the cliff been serpentine marble. You must choose between two plans. I could scrape you a step, wider than the rest—almost aledge—just out of reach of the water, leaving you there, while I go on up, and finish. Then I could return for you. You could climb in front, I helping from below. You would feel safer. Or—you must follow me up now, step by step, as I cut them.”

“I could not wait on a ledge alone,” said Myra. “I will follow you, step by step.”

“Good,” said Jim Airth; “it will save time. I am afraid you must take off your shoes and stockings. Nothing will do for this work, but naked feet. We shall need to stick our toes into the sand, and make them cling on like fingers.”

He pulled off his own boots and stockings; then drew the belt from his Norfolk jacket, and fastened it firmly round his left ankle in such a way that a long end would hang down behind him as he mounted.

“See that?” he said. “When you are in the niches below me, it will hang close to your hands. If you are slipping, and feel youmustclutch at something, catch hold of that. Only, if possible, shout first, and I will stick on likea limpet, and try to withstand the strain. But don’t do it, unless really necessary.”

He picked up Myra’s shoes and stockings, and put them into his big pockets.

At that moment an advance wave rushed up the sand and caught their bare feet.

“Oh, Jim Airth,” cried Myra, “go without me! I have not a steady head. I cannot climb.”

He put his hands upon her shoulders, and looked full into her eyes.

“Youcanclimb,” he said. “Youmustclimb. Youshallclimb. We must climb—or drown. And, remember: if you fall, I fall too. You will not be saving me, by letting yourself go.”

She looked up into his eyes, despairingly. They blazed into hers from beneath his bent brows. She felt the tremendous mastery of his will. Her own gave one final struggle.

“I have nothing to live for, Jim Airth,” she said. “I am alone in the world.”

“So am I,” he cried. “I have been worse than alone, for a half score of years. Butthere islifeto live for. Would you throw away the highest of all gifts? I want to live—Good God! Imustlive; and so must you. We live or die together.”

He loosed her shoulders and took her by the wrists. He lifted her trembling hands, and held them against his breast.

For a moment they stood so, in absolute silence.

Then Myra felt herself completely dominated. All fear slipped from her; but the assurance which took its place was his courage, not hers; and she knew it. Lifting her head, she smiled at him, with white lips.

“I shall not fall,” she said.

Another wave swept round their ankles, and remained there.

“Good,” said Jim Airth, and loosed her wrists. “We shall owe our lives to each other. Next time I look into your face, please God, we shall be in safety. Come!”

He sprang up the face of the cliff, standing in the highest niches he had made.

“Now follow me, carefully,” he said;“slowly, and carefully. We are not in a position to hurry. Always keep each hand and each foot firmly in a niche. Are you there? Good!... Now don’t look either up or down, but keep your eyes on my heels. Directly I move, come on into the empty places. See?... Now then. Can you manage?... Good! On we go! After all it won’t take long.... I say, what fun if the Miss Murgatroyds peeped over the cliff! Amelia would be so shocked at our bare feet. Eliza would cry: ‘Oh my dear love!’ And Susie would promptly fall upon us! Hullo! Steady down there! Don’t laugh too much.... Fine knife, this. I bought it in Mexico. And if the big blade gives out, there are two more; also a saw, and a cork-screw.... Mind the falling sand does not get into your eyes.... Tell me if the niches are not deep enough, and remember there is no hurry, we are not aiming to catch any particular train! Steady down there! Don’t laugh.... Up we go! Oh, good! This is a third of the way. Don’t look either up or down. Watchmy heels—I wish they were more worth looking at—and remember the belt is quite handy, and I am as firm as a rock up here. You and all the Miss Murgatroyds might hang on to it together. Steady down there!... All right; I won’t mention them.... By the way, the water must be fairly deep below us now. If you fell, you would merely get a ducking. I should slide down and pull you out, and we would start afresh.... Good Lord!... Oh, never mind! Nothing. Only, my knife slipped, but I caught it again.... We must be half way, by now. How lucky we have my glissading marks to guide us. I can’t see the ledge from here. Let’s sing ‘Nancy Lee.’ I suppose you know it. I can always work better to a good rollicking tune.”

Then, as he drove his blade into the cliff, Jim Airth’s gay voice rang out:

“Of all the wives as e’er you know,

Yeo ho! lads! ho!

Yeo ho! Yeo ho!

There’s none like Nancy Lee, I trow,

Yeo ho! lads! ho!

Yeo ho!

See there she stands

—Blow! I’ve struck a rock! Not a big one though. Remember this step will be slightly more to your right

—and waves her hands,

Upon the quay,

And ev’ry day when I’m away,

She’ll watch for me;

And whisper low, when tempests blow—

Oh, hang these unexpected stones! That’s finished my big blade!

—For Jack at sea,

Yeo ho! lads, ho! Yeo ho!

Now the chorus.

The sailor’s wife the sailor’s star shall be,—

Come on! You sing too!”

“Yeo ho! we go,

Across the sea!”

came Lady Ingleby’s voice from below, rather faint and quavering.

“That’s right!” shouted Jim Airth. “Keep it up! I can see the ledge now, just above us.

The bo’s’n pipes the watch below,

Yeo ho! lads! ho!

Yeo ho! Yeo ho!

Then here’s a health afore we go,

Yeo ho! lads! ho!

Yeo ho!

A long, long life to my sweet wife,

And mates at sea

—Keep it up down there! I have one hand on the ledge—

And keep our bones from Davy Jones

Where’er we be!”

“And—keep our bones—from—

Davy Jones—who e’er he be,”

quavered Lady Ingleby, making one final effort to move up into the vacant niches, though conscious that her fingers and toes were so numb that she could not feel them grip the sand.

Then Jim Airth’s whole body vanished suddenly from above her, as he drew himself on to the ledge.

“Yeo ho! we go!” Came his gay voice from above.

“Yeo ho! Yeo ho!”

sang Lady Ingleby, in a faint whisper.

She could not move on into the empty niches. She could only remain where she was, clinging to the face of the cliff.

She suddenly thought of a fly on a wall; and remembered a particular fly, years ago, on her nursery wall. She had followed its ascent with a small interested finger, and her nurse had come by with a duster, and saying: “Nasty thing!” had ruthlessly flicked it off. The fly had fallen—fallen dead, on the nursery carpet.... Lady Ingleby felt she too was falling. She gave one agonised glance upward to the towering cliff, with the line of sky above it. Then everything swayed and rocked. “A mother of soldiers,” her brain insisted, “must fall without screaming.” Then—A long arm shot down from above; a strong hand gripped her firmly.

“One step more,” said Jim Airth’s voice, close to her ear, “and I can lift you.”

She made the effort, and he drew her on to the ledge beside him.

“Thank you very much,” said Lady Ingleby. “And who was Davy Jones?”

Jim Airth’s face was streaming with perspiration. His mouth was full of sand. His heart was beating in his throat. But he loved to play the game, and he loved to see another do it. So he laughed as he put his arm around her, holding her tightly so that she should not realise how much she was trembling.

“Davy Jones,” he said, “is a gentleman who has a locker at the bottom of the sea, into which all drown’d things go. I am afraid your pretty parasol has gone there, and my boots and stockings. But we may well spare him those.... Oh, I say!.... Yes, do have a good cry. Don’t mind me. And don’t you think between us we could remember some sort of a prayer? For if ever two people faced death together, we have faced it; and, by God’s mercy, here we are—alive.”

CHAPTER XI’TWIXT SEA AND SKY

Myra never forgot Jim Airth’s prayer. Instinctively she knew it to be the first time he had voiced his soul’s thanksgiving or petitions in the presence of another. Also she realised that, for the first time in her whole life, prayer became to her a reality. As she crouched on the ledge beside him, shaking uncontrollably, so that, but for his arm about her, she must have lost her balance and fallen; as she heard that strong soul expressing in simple unorthodox language its gratitude for life and safety, mingled with earnest petition for keeping through the night and complete deliverance in the morning; it seemed to Myra that the heavens opened, and the felt presence of God surrounded them in their strange isolation.

An immense peace filled her. By the timethose disjointed halting sentences were finished, Myra had ceased trembling; and when Jim Airth, suddenly at a loss how else to wind up his prayer, commenced “Our Father, Who art in heaven,” Myra’s sweet voice united with his, full of an earnest fervour of petition.

At the final words, Jim Airth withdrew his arm, and a shy silence fell between them. The emotion of the mind had awakened an awkwardness of body. In that uniting “OurFather,” their souls had leapt on, beyond where their bodies were quite prepared to follow.

Lady Ingleby saved the situation. She turned to Jim Airth, with that impulsive sweetness which could never be withstood. In the rapidly deepening twilight, he could just see the large wistful grey eyes, in the white oval of her face.

“Do you know,” she said, “I really couldn’t possibly sit all night, on a ledge the size of a Chesterfield sofa, with a person I had to call ‘Mr.’ I could only sit there with an old and intimate friend, who would naturally call me‘Myra,’ and whom I might call ‘Jim.’ Unless I may call you ‘Jim,’ I shall insist on climbing down and swimming home. And if you address me as ‘Mrs. O’Mara,’ I shall certainly become hysterical, and tumble off!”

“Why of course,” said Jim Airth. “I hate titles of any kind. I come of an old Quaker stock, and plain names with no prefixes always seem best to me. And are we not old and trusted friends? Was not each of those minutes on the face of the cliff, a year? While that second which elapsed between the slipping of my knife from my right hand and the catching of it, against my knee, by my left, may go at ten years! Ah, think if it had dropped altogether! No, don’t think. We were barely half way up. Now you must contrive to put on your shoes and stockings.” He produced them from his pocket. “And then we must find out how to place ourselves most comfortably and safely. We have but one enemy to fight during the next seven hours—cramp. You must tell me immediately if you feel it threatening anywhere, I havedone a lot of scouting in my time, and know a dodge or two. I also know what it is to lie in one position for hours, not daring to move a muscle, the cold sweat pouring off my face, simply from the agonies of cramp. We must guard against that.”

“Jim,” said Myra, “how long shall we have to sit here?”

He made a quick movement, as if the sound of his name from her lips for the first time, meant much to him; and there was in his voice an added depth of joyousness, as he answered:

“It would be impossible to climb from here to the top of the cliff. When I came down, I had a sheer drop of ten feet. You see the cliff slightly overhangs just above us. So far as the tide is concerned we might clamber down in three hours; but there is no moon, and by then, it will be pitch dark. We must have light for our descent, if I am to land you safe and unshaken at the bottom. Dawn should be breaking soon after three. The sun rises to-morrow at 3.44; but it will be quite light before then. I think we may expect toreach the Moorhead Inn by 4 A.M. Let us hope Miss Murgatroyd will not be looking out of her window, as we stroll up the path.”

“What are they all thinking now?” questioned Lady Ingleby.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” said Jim Airth, gaily. “You’re alive, and I’m alive; and we’ve done a record climb! Nothing else matters.”

“No, but seriously, Jim?”

“Well, seriously, it is very unlikely that I shall be missed at all. I often dine elsewhere, and let myself in quite late; or stop out altogether. How about you?”

“Why, curiously enough,” said Myra, “before coming out I locked my bedroom door. I have the key here. I had left some papers lying about—I am not a very tidy person. On the only other occasion upon which I locked my door, I omitted dinner altogether, and went to bed on returning from my evening walk. I am supposed to be doing a ‘rest-cure’ here. The maid tried my door, went away, and did not turn up again until nextmorning. Most likely she has done the same to-night.”

“Then I don’t suppose they will send out a search-party,” said Jim Airth.

“No. We are so alone down here. We only matter to ourselves,” said Myra.

“And to each other,” said Jim Airth, quietly.

Myra’s heart stood still.

Those four words, spoken so simply by that deep tender voice, meant more to her than any words had ever meant. They meant so much, that they made for themselves a silence—a vast holy temple of wonder and realisation wherein they echoed back and forth, repeating themselves again and again.

The two on the ledge sat listening.

The chant of mutual possession, so suddenly set going, was too beautiful a thing to be interrupted by other words.

Even Lady Ingleby’s unfailing habit of tactful speech was not allowed to spoil the deep sweetness of this unexpected situation. Myra’s heart was waking; and when the heartis stirred, the mind sometimes forgets to be tactful.

At length:—“Don’t you remember,” he said, very low, “what I told you before we began to climb? Did I not say, that if we succeeded in reaching the ledge safely, we should owe our lives to each other? Well, we did; and—we do.”

“Ah, no,” cried Myra, impulsively. “No, Jim Airth! You—glad, and safe, and free—were walking along the top of these cliffs. I, in my senseless folly, lay sleeping on the sand below, while the tide rose around me. You came down into danger to save me, risking your life in so doing. I owe you my life, Jim Airth; you owe me nothing.”

The man beside her turned and looked at her, with his quiet whimsical smile.

“I am not accustomed to have my statements amended,” he said, drily.

It was growing so dark, they could only just discern each other’s faces.

Lady Ingleby laughed. She was so unused to that kind of remark, that, atthe moment she could frame no suitable reply.

Presently:—“I suppose I really owe my life to my scarlet parasol,” she said. “Had it not attracted your attention, you would not have seen me.”

“Should I not?” questioned Jim Airth, his eyes on the white loveliness of her face. “Since I saw you first, on the afternoon of your arrival, have you ever once come within my range of vision without my seeing you, and taking in every detail?”

“On the afternoon of my arrival?” questioned Lady Ingleby, astonished.

“Yes,” replied Jim Airth, deliberately. “Seven o’clock, on the first of June. I stood at the smoking-room window, at a loose end of all things; sick of myself, dissatisfied with my manuscript, tired of fried fish—don’t laugh; small things, as well as great, go to make up the sum of a man’s depression. Then the gate swung back, and YOU—in golden capitals—the sunlight in your eyes, came up the garden path. I judged you to be a womangrown, in years perhaps not far short of my own age; I guessed you a woman of the world, with a position to fill, and a knowledge of men and things. Yet you looked just a lovely child, stepping into fairy-land; the joyful surprise of unexpected holiday danced in your radiant eyes. Since then, the beautiful side of life has always been you—YOU, in golden capitals.”

Jim Airth paused, and sat silent.

It was quite dark now.

Myra slipped her hand into his, which closed upon it with a strong unhesitating clasp.

“Go on, Jim,” she said, softly.

“I went out into the hall, and saw your name in the visitors’ book. The ink was still wet. The handwriting was that of the holiday-child—I should like to set you copies! The name surprised me—agreeably. I had expected to be able at once to place the woman who had walked up the path. It was a surprise and a relief to find that my Fairy-land Princess was not after all a fashionablebeauty or a society leader, but owned just a simple Irish name, and lived at a Lodge.”

“Go on, Jim,” said Lady Ingleby, rather tremulously.

“Then the name ‘Shenstone’ interested me, because I know the Inglebys—at least, I knew Lord Ingleby, well; and I shall soon know Lady Ingleby. In fact I have written to-day asking for an interview. I must see her on business connected with notes of her husband’s which, if she gives permission, are to be embodied in my book. I suppose if you live near Shenstone Park you know the Inglebys?”

“Yes,” said Myra. “But tell me, Jim; if—if you noticed so much that first day; if you were—interested; if you wanted to set me copies—yes, I know I write a shocking hand;—why would you never look at me? Why were you so stiff and unfriendly? Why were you not as nice to me as you were to Susie, for instance?”

Jim Airth sat long in silence, staring out into the darkness. At last he said:

“I want to tell you. Of course, Imusttell you. But—may I ask a few questions first?”

Lady Ingleby also gazed unseeingly into the darkness; but she leaned a little nearer to the broad shoulder beside her. “Ask me what you will,” she said. “There is nothing, in my whole life, I would not tell you, Jim Airth.”

Her cheek was so close to the rough Norfolk jacket, that if it had moved a shade nearer, she would have rested against it. But it did not move; only, the clasp on her hand tightened.

“Were you married very young?” asked Jim Airth.

“I was not quite eighteen. It is ten years ago.”

“Did you marry for love?”

There was a long silence, while both looked steadily into the darkness.

Then Myra answered, speaking very slowly. “To be quite honest, I think I married chiefly to escape from a very unhappy home. Also I was very young, and knew nothing—nothing of life, and nothing of love; and—how can Iexplain, Jim Airth?—I have not learnt much during these ten long years.”

“Have you been unhappy?” He asked the question very low.

“Not exactly unhappy. My husband was a very good man; kind and patient, beyond words, towards me. But I often vaguely felt I was missing the Best in life. Now—I know I was.”

“How long have you been—How long has he been dead?” The deep voice was so tender, that the question could bring no pain.

“Seven months,” replied Lady Ingleby. “My husband was killed in the assault on Targai.”

“At Targai!” exclaimed Jim Airth, surprised into betraying his astonishment. Then at once recovering himself: “Ah, yes; of course. Seven months. I was there, you know.”

But, within himself, he was thinking rapidly, and much was becoming clear.

Sergeant O’Mara! Was it possible? An exquisite refined woman such as this, bearing about her the unmistakable hall-mark ofhigh birth and perfect breeding? The Sergeant was a fine fellow, and superior—but, good Lord!Herhusband! Yet girls of eighteen do foolish things, and repent ever after. A runaway match from an unhappy home; then cast off by her relations, and now left friendless and alone. But—Sergeant O’Mara! Yet no other O’Mara fell at Targai; and therewassome link between him and Lord Ingleby.

Then, into his musing, came Myra’s soft voice, from close beside him, in the darkness: “My husband was always good to me; but——”

And Jim Airth laid his other hand over the one he held. “I am sure he was,” he said, gently. “But if you had been older, and had known more of love and life you would have done differently. Don’t try to explain. I understand.”

And Myra gladly left it at that. It would have been so very difficult to explain further, without explaining Michael; and all that really mattered was, that—with or without explanation—Jim Airth understood.

“And now—tell me,” she suggested, softly.

“Ah, yes,” he said, pulling himself together, with an effort. “My experience also misses the Best, and likewise covers ten long years. But it is a harder one than yours. I married, when a boy of twenty-one, a woman, older than myself; supremely beautiful. I went mad over her loveliness. Nothing seemed to count or matter, but that. I knew she was not a good woman, but I thought she might become so; and even if she didn’t it made no difference. I wanted her. Afterwards I found she had laughed at me, all the time. Also, there had all the time been another—an older man than I—who had laughed with her. He had not been in a position to marry her when I did; but two years later, he came into money. Then—she left me.”

Jim Airth paused. His voice was hard with pain. The night was very black. In the dark silence they could hear the rhythmic thunder of the waves pounding monotonously against the cliff below.

“I divorced her, of course; and he marriedher; but I went abroad, and stayed abroad. I never could look upon her as other than my wife. She had made a hell of my life; robbed me of every illusion; wrecked my ideals; imbittered my youth. But I had said, before God, that I took her for my wife, until death parted us; and, so long as we were both alive, what power could free me from that solemn oath? It seemed to me that by remaining in another hemisphere, I made her second marriage less sinful. Often, at first, I was tempted to shoot myself, as a means of righting this other wrong. But in time I outgrew that morbidness, and realised that though Love is good, Life is the greatest gift of all. To throw it away, voluntarily, is an unpardonable sin. The suicide’s punishment should be loss of immortality. Well, I found work to do, of all sorts, in America, and elsewhere. And a year ago—she died. I should have come straight home, only I was booked for that muddle on the frontier they called ‘a war.’ I got fever after Targai; was invalided home; and here I am recruiting and finishingmy book. Now you can understand why loveliness in a woman, fills me with a sort of panic, even while a part of me still leaps up instinctively to worship it. I had often said to myself that if I ever ventured upon matrimony again, it should be a plain face, and a noble heart; though all the while I knew I should never bring myself really to want the plain face. And yet, just as the burnt child dreads the fire, I have always tried to look away from beauty. Only—my Fairy-land Princess, may I say it?—days ago I began to feel certain that in you—YOU in golden capitals—the loveliness and the noble heart went together. But from the moment when, stepping out of the sunset, you walked up the garden path, right into my heart, the fact ofYOU, just being what you are, and being here, meant so much to me, that I did not dare let it mean more. Somehow I never connected you with widowhood; and not until you said this evening on the shore: ‘I am a soldier’s widow,’ did I know that you were free.—There! Now you have heard all there is tohear. I made a bad mistake at the beginning; but I hope I am not the sort of chap you need mind sitting on a ledge with, and calling ‘Jim’.”

For answer, Myra’s cheek came trustfully to rest against the sleeve of the rough tweed coat. “Jim,” she said; “Oh, Jim!”

Presently: “So you know the Inglebys?” remarked Jim Airth.

“Yes,” said Myra.

“Is ‘The Lodge’ near Shenstone Park?”

“The Lodge isinthe park. It is not at any of the gates.—I am not a gate-keeper, Jim!—It is a pretty little house, standing by itself, just inside the north entrance.”

“Do you rent it from them?”

Myra hesitated, but only for the fraction of a second. “No; it is my own. Lord Ingleby gave it to me.”

“LordIngleby?” Jim Airth’s voice sounded like knitted brows. “Why notLadyIngleby?”

“It was not hers, to give. All that is hers, was his.”

“I see. Which of them did you know first?”

“I have known Lady Ingleby all my life,” said Myra, truthfully; “and I have known Lord Ingleby since his marriage.”

“Ah. Then he became your friend, because he married her?”

Myra laughed. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose so.”

“What’s the joke?”

“Only that it struck me as an amusing way of putting it; but it is undoubtedly true.”

“Have they any children?”

Myra’s voice shook slightly. “No, none. Why do you ask?”

“Well, in the campaign, I often shared Lord Ingleby’s tent; and he used to talk in his sleep.”

“Yes?”

“There was one name he often called and repeated.”

Lady Ingleby’s heart stood still.

“Yes?” she said, hardly breathing.

“It was ‘Peter’,” continued Jim Airth. “The night before he was killed, he keptturning in his sleep and saying: ‘Peter! Hullo, little Peter! Come here!’ I thought perhaps he had a little son named Peter.”

“He had no son,” said Lady Ingleby, controlling her voice with effort. “Peter was a dog of which he was very fond. Was that the only name he spoke?”

“The only one I ever heard,” replied Jim Airth.

Then suddenly Lady Ingleby clasped both hands round his arm.

“Jim,” she whispered, brokenly, “Not once have you spoken my name. It was a bargain. We were to be old and intimate friends. I seem to have been calling you ‘Jim’ all my life! But you have not yet called me ‘Myra,’ Let me hear it now, please.”

Jim Airth laid his big hand over both of hers.

“I can’t,” he said. “Hush! I can’t. Not up here—it means too much. Wait until we get back to earth again. Then—Oh, I say! Can’t you help?”

This kind of emotion was an unknownquantity to Lady Ingleby. So was the wild beating of her own heart. But she knew the situation called for tact, and was not tactful speech always her special forte?

“Jim,” she said, “are you not frightfully hungry? I should be; only I had an enormous tea before coming out. Would you like to hear what I had for tea? No. I am afraid it would make you feel worse. I suppose dinner at the inn was over, long ago. I wonder what variation of fried fish they had, and whether Miss Susannah choked over a fish-bone, and had to be requested to leave the room. Oh, do you remember that evening? You looked so dismayed and alarmed, I quite thought you were going to the rescue! I wonder what time it is?”

“We can soon tell that,” said Jim Airth, cheerfully. He dived into his pocket, produced a matchbox which he had long been fingering turn about with his pipe and tobacco-pouch, struck a light, and looked at his watch. Myra saw the lean brown face, in the weird flare of the match. She also saw the horriddepth so close to them, which she had almost forgotten. A sense of dizziness came over her. She longed to cling to his arm; but he had drawn it resolutely away.

“Half past ten,” said Jim Airth. “Miss Murgatroyd has donned her night-cap. Miss Eliza has sighed: ‘Good-night, summer, good-night, good-night,’ at her open lattice; and Susie, folding her plump hands, has said: ‘Now I lay me.’”

Myra laughed. “And they will all be listening for you to dump out your big boots,” she said. “That is always your ‘Good-night’ to the otherwise silent house.”

“No, really? Does it make a noise?” said Jim Airth, ruefully. “Never again——?”

“Oh, but you must,” said Myra. “I love—I meanSusieloves the sound, and listens for it. Jim, that match reminds me:—why don’t you smoke? Surely it would help the hunger, and be comfortable and cheering.”

Jim Airth’s pipe and pouch were out in a twinkling.

“Sure you don’t mind? It doesn’t make you sick, or give you a headache?”

“No, I think I like it,” said Myra. “In fact, I am sure I like it. That is, I like to sit beside it. No, I don’t do it myself.”

Another match flared, and again she saw the chasm, and the nearness of the edge. She bore it until the pipe was drawing well. Then: “Oh, Jim,” she said, “I am so sorry; but I am afraid I am becoming dizzy. I feel as though I must fall over.” She gave a half sob.

Jim Airth turned, instantly alert.

“Nonsense,” he said, but the sharp word sounded tender. “Four good feet of width are as safe as forty. Change your position a bit.” He put his arm around her, and moved her so that she leant more completely against the cliff at their backs. “Now forget the edge,” he said, “and listen. I am going to tell you camp yarns, and tales of the Wild West.”

Then as they sat on in the darkness, Jim Airth smoked and talked, painting vivid word-pictures of life and adventure in other lands. And Myra listened, absorbed andenchanted; every moment realising more fully, as he unconsciously revealed it, the manly strength and honest simplicity of his big nature, with its fun and its fire; its huge capacity for enjoyment; its corresponding capacity for pain.

And, as she listened, her heart said: “Oh, my cosmopolitan cowboy! Thank God you found no title in the book, to put you off. Thank God you found no name which you could ‘place,’ relegating its poor possessor to the ranks of ‘society leaders’ in which you would have had no share. And, oh! most of all, I thank God for the doctor’s wise injunction: ‘Leave behind you your own identity’!”

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