ct at which they had been
gazing. In strange foreboding silence they urged on the boat, while
Eric at the prow seemed wild with the one intense impulse to verify his
horrible suspicion. The suspicion grew and grew:--it _was_ a boy lying
in the water;--it was Vernon;--he was motionless;--he must have fallen
there from the cliff.

Eric could endure the suspense no longer. The instant that the boat
grated on the shingle, he sprang into the water, and rushed to the spot
where his brother's body lay. With a burst of passionate affection, he
flung himself on his knees beside it, and took the cold hand in his
own--the little rigid hand in which the green blades of grass, and fern,
and heath, so tightly clutched, were unconscious of the tale they told.

"O Verny, Verny, darling Verny, speak to me!" he cried in anguish, as he
tenderly lifted up the body, and marked how little blood had flowed.
But the child's head fell back heavily, and his arms hung motionlessly
beside him, and with a shriek, Eric suddenly caught the look of dead
fixity in his blue open eyes.

The others had come up. "O God, save my brother, save him, save him
from death," cried Eric. "I cannot live without him. O God! O God!
Look! look!" he continued, "he has fallen from the cliff with his head
on this cursed stone," pointing to the block of quartz, still red with
blood-stained hair; "but we must get a doctor. He is not dead! no, no,
he _cannot_ be dead. Take him quickly, and let us row home. O God! why
did I ever leave him?"

The boys drew round in a frightened circle, and lifted Vernon's corpse
into the boat; and then, while Eric still supported the body, and
moaned, and called to him in anguish, and chafed his cold pale brow and
white hands, and kept saying that he had fainted and was not dead, the
others rowed home with all speed, while a feeling of terrified anxiety
lay like frost upon their hearts.

They reached Starhaven, and lifted the lifeless boy into the cart, and
heard from Wright how the accident had taken place. Few boys were about
the playground, so they got unnoticed to Roslyn, and Dr Underhay, who
had been summoned, was instantly in attendance. He looked at Vernon for
a moment, and then shook his head in a way that could not be mistaken.

Eric saw it, and flung himself with uncontrollable agony on his
brother's corpse. "O Vernon, Vernon, my own darling brother! O God,
then he is dead!" And, unable to endure the blow, he f