t that he had, while
groping his way out of the crypt, slung the cross around his neck, in
order to free his hands. I shudder as I recall the spectacle. The
sight would have struck Winifred dead, or sent her raving mad, on the
spot; but she had not turned the corner, and I had just time to wheel
sharply round, and thrust my body between her and the spectacle. The
dog saw it, and, foaming with terror, pointed at it.

'I beg your pardon, Winifred,' I said, falling upon her and pushing
her back.

Then I stood paralysed as the full sinister meaning of the situation
broke in upon my mind. Had the _debris_ fallen in any other way I
might have saved Winifred from seeing the most cruel feature of the
hideous spectacle, the cross, the evidence of her father's sacrilege.
I might, perhaps, on some pretence, have left her on this side the
_debris_, and turning the corner, have mounted the heap and removed
the cross gleaming in hideous mockery on the dead man's breast, and
giving back the moonbeams in a cross of angry fire. One glance,
however, had shown me that before this could be done, there was a
wall of slippery sward to climb, for the largest portion of the
churchyard soil had broken off in one lump. In falling, it had turned
but _half_ over, and then had slid down sideways, presenting to the
climber a facet or sward nearly perpendicular and a dozen feet high.
Wedged in between the jaggy top of this block and the wall of the
cliff was the corpse, showing that Wynne had been standing by the
fissure of the cliff at the moment when it widened into a landslip.

Nor was that all; between that part of the _debris_ where the corpse
was perched and the sand below was one of those long pools of
sea-water edged by shingles, which are common features of that coast.
It seemed that Destiny or Circumstance, more pitiless than Fate and
Hell, determined on our ruin, had forgotten nothing.

The contour of the cove; the way in which the debris had been thrown
across the path we now must follow in order to reach the only place
of egress; the way in which the hideous spectacle of Wynne and the
proof of his guilt had been placed, so that to pass it without seeing
it the passenger must go blindfold; the brilliance of the moon,
intensified by being reflected from the sea; the fulness of the high
tide, and the swell--all was complete! As I stood there with clenched
teeth, like a rat in a trap, a wind seemed to come blowing through my
soul, freez