as she had seen Milbanke--visions of the cottage at
Carrigmore, of her aunt's dark room, filled with the sound of
lamentation.

Before she was aware of it, she turned a bend in the path, and came
full upon the scene of her father's accident. She paused, gave a faint
gasp, and involuntarily put her hand to her throat. Her destination was
nearer than she had thought.

In a vague, startled way her eyes scanned the place, roving from the
chasm in the cliff to the sweep of short grass, with its tufting of
hardy flowers that throve in the strong, salt air. It was also
still--so extraordinarily still! Fifty yards away a goat browsed on the
cliff, and the quiet, cropping sound of its eating came to her
distinctly; overhead in the pale blue sky a hawk was poised, seemingly
motionless; down below her, three hundred feet away, the sea made a
curious sucking noise, as it filled and receded from some invisible
fissure in the rocks.

Still with her hand to her throat, she tip-toed forward to the edge of
the chasm. Then suddenly she drew back, trembling and giddy. Beneath
her, at what looked an incredible distance, the clear green waters
formed a narrow estuary, shadowed by the towering rocks. They were like
a grave, those waters--so secret, so full of mystery! Again she forced
herself to look, compelling her unwilling eyes to travel up and down
the great sweep of red sandstone, from the grass at the edge of the
abyss to the dark water, from the water back again to the grass.

She could not be a coward in this last moment! She had never been a
physical coward!

She stepped back; she took one dazed look at the world that, until
yesterday, had been so very fair; she drew one long, tense, shuddering
breath, closed her eyes, and went forward.

But at her first step something or some one came rushing down the cliff
behind her. She gave a terrified cry, opened her eyes, and recoiled
from the chasm. A moment later she had turned, trembling, crying,
utterly unnerved, to find Mick leaping round her.

"Mick!" she said tremulously--"Mick!" Then a voice called to her; and,
looking up, she saw Hannah, her hair dishevelled, her eyes still
streaming, the yellow envelope of a telegram held in the corner of her
apron.

"The fright you gave me, Miss Clodagh!" she began. "Sure, I'd nivver
find you at all, only for the dog!"

Then she stopped, looking sharply at her mistress.

"Miss Clodagh, what is it all? Come home!--come home, my lamb!"