in silence. Again
Renshaw heard his name called. But he deigned no answer.

"I say, Fanning," came the voice from overhead again. "Hang it, man,
say you agree."

"Never," now replied Renshaw, speaking coldly and deliberately. "I have
never been a grasping man, and I defy my worst enemy to charge me with a
single instance of taking advantage of anybody. But--I have always
tried to be a man of principle--to act on principle. And in utterly
refusing to play up to your villainous hand I am following out that line
consistently. And now, Maurice Sellon, I will just add this. I am
alone in the world, and having no ties my life is to that extent my own.
I will let it be sacrificed rather than violate a principle. But you,
from the hour you leave this place, you will never know a moment's
peace, never for a moment will the recollection of what you have done
to-day cease to haunt you. Here from my living tomb I can afford to
pity you."

Again there was silence. But there was an awfulness about those parting
words, the more forcible that they were spoken without heat or anger--a
solemnity which could not but live in the recollection of him to whom
they were addressed. How did they strike him now?

Suddenly something shot out into the air from above, falling with a
`thwack' against the face of the cliff. It was the raw-hide rope.

Renshaw merely looked at it. The end trailed at his feet. Yet he put
forward no hand to seize it.

"Come on, old chap," sung out Sellon in his heartiest manner. "Why,
I've only been playing off a practical joke on you--just to see how
`grit' you are. And you are `grit' and no mistake."

But Renshaw shook his head with a bitter smile. Still he made no move
forward.

"Do you want to finish me off more quickly than at first?" he said. "I
suppose the line will be cut by the time I'm half-way up."

"No. I swear it won't," called out the other. "Man alive, can't you
take a little chaff? I tell you I've only been humbugging you all
along."

Renshaw did not believe a word of this. But as he stood there the whole
truth of the matter seemed to flash upon him. Sellon had been beset by
a terrible temptation, and had yielded--for the moment. Then his better
instincts had come uppermost, and this was the result.

Still, as he seized the rope, and having tested it, started on his
climb, he more than half expected every moment of that climb to be his
last. Then as he rose above th