I can easily get up there," she said. "And you may stay down here
if you like, and grow sentimental over the ghost of a dinner." And,
laughing, she darted up a steep ascent of turf, slackening her pace when
she came to a rough heap of fallen stones. Carroll was by her side
directly, helping her. "Why, this is prettier than where we went this
morning," she said when they reached the top: "you see the whole place
better. But it's narrower, I think. This is the west wall, isn't it? Oh,
Mr. Carroll, how much the sun has gone down already!"

"I wish I were Moses, or whoever it was, to make it stop," said the boy:
"it would stay up there a good long time."

There was a black belt of shadow at the foot of the wall. Archie looked
down as if to measure its breadth. A little tuft of green caught his
eye, and stooping he pulled it from between the stones.

"Oh, how broken it is here! Doesn't it look as if a giant had taken a
great bite out of it?" Sissy exclaimed, at the same moment that he
called after her, "Is this right, Miss Langton?"

She turned her head, and for a second's space he saw her bright face,
her laughing, parted lips. Then there was a terrible cry, stretched
hands at which he snatched instinctively but in vain, and a stone which
slipped and fell heavily. He stumbled forward, and recovered himself
with an effort. There was blank space before him--and what below?

Archie Carroll half scrambled down by the help of the ivy, half slid,
and reached the ground. Thus, at the risk of his life, he gained half a
minute, and spent it in kneeling on the grass--a yard away from that
which he dared not touch--saying pitifully, "Miss Langton! Oh, won't you
speak to me, Miss Langton?"

He was in the shadow, but looking across the enclosure he faced a broken
doorway in the south-east corner. The ground sloped away a little, and
the arch opened into the stainless blue. A sound of footsteps made
Carroll look up, and through the archway came Raymond Fothergill. He had
heard the cry, he had outrun the rest, and, even in his blank
bewilderment of horror, Archie shrank back scared at his cousin's
aspect. His brows and moustache were black as night against the
unnatural whiteness of his face, which was like bleached wax. His eyes
were terrible. He seemed to reach the spot in an instant. Carroll saw
his hands on the stone which had fallen, and lay on her--O God!--or only
on her dress?

Fothergill's features contracted in sudden agon