r seemed to be detaining her down
there against her will. A sloping path beneath the beetling cliff and
the castle walls rising sheer from its summit, led down to the lower
level whence the voice proceeded. Pierston followed the pathway, and
soon beheld a girl in light clothing--the same he had seen through
the window--standing upon one of the rocks, apparently unable to move.
Pierston hastened across to her.

'O, thank you for coming!' she murmured with some timidity. 'I have met
with an awkward mishap. I live near here, and am not frightened really.
My foot has become jammed in a crevice of the rock, and I cannot get it
out, try how I will. What SHALL I do!'

Jocelyn stooped and examined the cause of discomfiture. 'I think if you
can take your boot off,' he said, 'your foot might slip out, leaving the
boot behind.'

She tried to act upon this advice, but could not do so effectually.
Pierston then experimented by slipping his hand into the crevice till he
could just reach the buttons of her boot, which, however, he could not
unfasten any more than she. Taking his penknife from his pocket he tried
again, and cut off the buttons one by one. The boot unfastened, and out
slipped the foot.

'O, how glad I am!' she cried joyfully. 'I was fearing I should have to
stay here all night. How can I thank you enough?'

He was tugging to withdraw the boot, but no skill that he could exercise
would move it without tearing. At last she said: 'Don't try any longer.
It is not far to the house. I can walk in my stocking.'

'I'll assist you in,' he said.

She said she did not want help, nevertheless allowed him to help her on
the unshod side. As they moved on she explained that she had come out
through the garden door; had been standing on the boulders to look at
something out at sea just discernible in the evening light as assisted
by the moon, and, in jumping down, had wedged her foot as he had found
it.

Whatever Pierston's years might have made him look by day, in the dusk
of evening he was fairly presentable as a pleasing man of no marked
antiquity, his outline differing but little from what it had been when
he was half his years. He was well preserved, still upright, trimly
shaven, agile in movement; wore a tightly buttoned suit which set of a
naturally slight figure; in brief, he might have been of any age as he
appeared to her at this moment. She talked to him with the co-equality
of one who assumed him to be not far ahe