better--best.
What? Have we found the Best? Ah, hush! I did not mean to say that
yet.... Are you ready for the climb down? No, I can't allow any peeping
over, and considering. If you really feel afraid of it, I will run to
Tregarth as quickly as possible, rouse the sleeping village, bring ropes
and men, and haul you up from the top."

"I absolutely decline to be 'hauled up from the top,' or to be left here
alone," declared Lady Ingleby.

"Then the sooner we start down, the better," said Jim Airth. "I'm going
first." He was over the edge before Myra could open her lips to
expostulate. "Now turn round. Hold on to the ledge firmly with your
hands, and give me your feet. Do you hear? Do as I tell you. Don't
hesitate. It is less steep than it seemed yesterday. We are quite safe.
Come on!... That's right."

Then Lady Ingleby passed through a most terrifying five minutes, while
she yielded in blind obedience to the strong hands beneath her, and the
big voice which encouraged and threatened alternately.

But when the descent was over and she stood on the shore beside Jim
Airth; when together they turned and looked in silence up the path of
glory on the rippling waters, to the blazing beauty of the rising sun,
thankful tears rushed to Lady Ingleby's eyes.

"Oh, Jim," she exclaimed, "God is good! It is so wonderful to be alive!"

Then Jim Airth turned, his face transfigured, the sunlight in his eyes,
and opened his arms. "Myra," he said. "We have found the Best."

* * * * *

They walked along the shore, and up the steep street of the sleeping
village, hand in hand like happy children.

Arrived at the Moorhead Inn, they pushed open the garden gate, and
stepped noiselessly across the sunlit lawn.

The front door was firmly bolted. Jim Airth slipped round to the back,
but returned in a minute shaking his head. Then he felt in his pocket for
the big knife which had served them so well; pushed back the catch of the
coffee-room window; softly raised the sash; swung one leg over, and drew
Myra in after him.

Once in the familiar room, with its mustard-pots and salt-cellars, its
table-cloths, left on in readiness for breakfast, they both lapsed into
fits of uncontrollable laughter; laughter the more overwhelming, because
it had to be silent.

Jim, recovering first, went off to the larder to forage for food.

Lady Ingleby flew noiselessly up to her room to wash her hands, and
smoot