ay, and she indulged in a flood of
tears, while Hirzel looked at her with the masculine helplessness usual
on such occasions, and indeed it seemed to cost the fine tender-hearted
fellow an effort to keep from joining in them too. At last he said,
"Well Marguerite, if you don't stop, I'll go off, and tell Charlie you
only cried after you heard he was alive and well."

"Ah! Hirzel, is that not the way with our sex. Sometimes, to cry over
the best and happiest times while the worst is bravely borne?"

Hirzel then told Marguerite how he had met Charlie just outside at the
foot of the lane, considerably bruised and knocked about, though without
any internal injuries. How he escaped was nothing short of a miracle,
one of those things which occasionally happen, perhaps, to show what
can be done when there is the will to do it.

There was an iron loop which projected about a foot from the walls, this
Charlie made a spring at after the manner of a gymnast; he caught it,
and although it came away in his grasp, yet it broke his fall, and what
was of more importance, changed the direction of his course to the
brickwork alongside the wheel, instead of the water under it. Once on
the brickwork he jumped down into the garden, and went out into the
lane, where he met Hirzel.

Charlie did not for a moment suspect that there was anything but pure
accident in what had happened, and as he met Hirzel just at that moment
he judged it wisest not to return near the house in case he should get
Marguerite into trouble; but after telling Hirzel to assure his sister
that he was safe, he set off to the fortress, little thinking he was
supposed to be lying dead at the foot of the Moulin Huet cliffs, carried
there by the mill stream.

Marguerite now told to her brother, her suspicions of how all had
happened. He wished to go immediately and tax Jacques with the crime;
but, in deference to his sister's wishes, remained where he was. The
noise of the mill wheel turning round suddenly ceased, and on Hirzel's
going up to ascertain the cause, he found his Father tying up the rope
in the room behind the granary. This rope passed out of a small round
hole in the wall of this room, and round the corner of the house where
it was attached to the wheel. The window through which Charlie and
Marguerite had been talking was rather a large one, but had some iron
bars across which had prevented Marguerite leaning out to see what had
become of Charlie. This perh