own.

He will be here in a minute,' said Maggie faintly. 'Go out and see if she is come too. Leave me here, and go and see.'

Profoundly wondering, yielding to the energy and terror of the child, Jane left her, and went to see. Henry Hurst had landed from the boat, dragged it on to the beach, and he was coming up the slope. His face was perfectly colourless, and he walked with rapid, uneven steps. At the gate he hesitated for a moment, but the next he passed in, glancing round him. He recognised Jane with a slight but perceptible start, and addressed her angrily, removing his hat and passing his hand two or three times across his forehead.

So you are here, are you?' he said. 'What do you mean by gadding about, and leaving no one but that lying little cripple here? Where's your mistress?'

'My mistress? Hasn't she come back with you?' said Jane, more and more bewildered.

So I did,' said Henry Hurst, speaking rapidly, and glancing along the strand. That confounded little monkey sent me on a fool's errand; when I had no time to spare, too. Mrs. Holmes is not there. Can't you tell where she is?'

'she

'She must be there,' said Jane; went in Burton's boat, and he was to fetch her; and there ain't no boat as she could have got away in.'

But I tell you she isn't there,' said Henry Hurst. I have been all over the island, and she is not there. If she was there at all this morning, some boat has picked her up. At all events, I can't stay here now. Here are five shillings for Burton for the use of his boat-confound it! I've torn my coat, and my hands too, dragging it about.'

He glanced at the woman's stolid face

'I cannot understand her being away from home, for she expected me. You don't happen to know whether she wrote any letters yesterday, do you?' No, sir, I don't,' said Jane. 'I posted one on Friday, but I don't know since then.' She posted a letter on Friday. To whom? He hardly dared to ask; what would he not give to know?

Of course it was not to me,' he said, or I should have received it.'

'I don't know, sir, I'm sure.'

'Don't forget my message. Good-day.' He was gone. Jane stood in the doorway until she lost sight of him, striding along the shore to the right. Then she looked to the left, and saw the boatmen and the women coming back from Sandham.

She opened the door of the room in which she had left Maggie, said briefly, 'Master is gone, and your father is coming along by the water-edge; and then ran rapidly down the slope, and along the strand, until she met the returning boatmen.

In a little while James Burton was beside his child, whose agitation, at first increased on seeing him, was somewhat allayed when she told him her story. He heard it with wonder, and with growing alarm at every word she said. The other boatmen had come up with him to the house, and Jane repeated to them all the positive statement of her master that the lady' was not on the island. Each man looked at his neighbour, but no one spoke. Presently Burton came out of the room where he had left his little girl, his face pale, and almost as frightened as Maggie's own.

6

We must go and look for her,' he said briefly. Alive or dead, she's there. You'll come with me,' he laid his heavy hand on Jackson's arm, and we'll leave the child with your wife.' He went back into the room, and came out again, carrying Maggie in his arms, her head covered with her pinafore, her face against his breast, and her hands round his neck. She sobbed convulsively and shuddered, but she did not uncover her head or look up for a moment. So the men went down to Jackson's cottage, and Burton gave his child in charge to Mrs. Jackson, who was very white and

silent, for the lady' was well liked by them all, and there was one fear in every heart. As Burton disengaged himself from the child's arms she whispered to him earnestly, entreatingly. Mrs. Jackson followed him to the door.

'I only want to ask you one question,' she said. Had she her bathing-things with her ? ?

6

Yes,' said Burton, she had.'

Then she's drowned, she's drowned!' cried Mrs. Jackson, wringing her hands. 'She's drowned; and I always said it!'

The four men landed at Green Island in silence, and proceeded, led by Burton, to the seaward side, to the sandy cove which he knew to be Alice's favourite resort. There was no sign of any human presence there. The quiet water was flowing through the Long Hole, cutting off one extremity of the island from the little domain of the mainland. Having gone all round the exterior of the island in vain, the searchers mounted the steep side of the little ravine, and there they came upon the first trace of what they sought. About halfway up the ascent there grew a sturdy furze-bush, by the side of a bare patch of stone, hollowed out by a caprice of nature into a rude likeness of a basin, and there were several articles of female attire rolled-up together, and put away with evident intention. Burton lifted them reverently; there was a terrible significance in the respect with which he handled them. Not so do we touch the garments of the living; sudden reverence for these soulless things comes to us only when they are the representatives of the tenement of the soul which has gone beyond our ken.

The four men stood close together, and spoke in the lowest whispers.

She took her clothes off here, and went in to bathe,' said Jackson; the tide comes up to the stones under this here place, and there would be no mark of her feet.'

She'll be washed-in with the next tide,' said one of the other men; it's going out fast. We sha'n't find her before night, mates.'

Burton had now reached the summit of the little ravine, and laid himself down on the ground along the edge exactly overlooking the mass of rock which formed a kind of table in the centre of the Long Hole, and over which the bright-green water was flowing peacefully, shining brilliantly under the sun, high in the serene heavens. Uncertain, and yet but too surely convinced, his companions stood about him, Jackson holding the bundle of

225

clothes, which Burton had handed over to him. Suddenly he protruded his head and shoulders over the edge of the ravine, and grasping the edge with one hand, put the other out behind him, and lifted it with a gesture which caused them all to stoop and look into the calm-flowing water beneath.

After a few minutes, which passed in profound silence, James Burton raised himself, first into a sitting position and then to his feet, and said, to his comrades, in a hoarse tone,

'She's there, mates, she's there. She's lying dead upon the rock; I can see her face under the water. What shall we do?'

There was no one to answer him. The bank they were on was ten feet above the high-water mark, and they had no ropes.

We must wait,' said Jackson, until the tide falls.'

'But if it should carry her out with it?' 'It will not do that,' said Burton, or it would have done it before now.'

After a hurried consultation, it was agreed that two of the men should go to the shore in one of the boats to give notice of the accident, and to bring back coverings in which to wrap the dead body; also to bring the servant, if she could be induced to come.

The two men went away, and Burton and Jackson began their terrible watch, under the glorious May sky, with the dancing waves around them, the song of the birds in the air, and under their eyes the tranquil flow of the lucid water -now sparkling with light, now shaded, dimpled by a passing cloud, but falling, falling, inch by inch, lessening its merciful, softening interposition between them and the awful, stark, dead face beneath it.

The men kept their watch. People began to collect upon the shore, and there were murmuring and movement among them, as the silent sentinels above the ravine could see. Time passed the messengers did not return.

They have gone to tell the police, and to fetch a doctor,' whispered Jackson; but Burton shook his head, and answered never a word.

The water fell, and fell. The dim, blurred, awful outline above the rock became more distinct. One round limb had fallen over the edge of the mass of stone, and the white foot was moved gently by the gurgling, rippling wave.

The water fell, and fell, until at length the form, in its long dress of brown serge, became visible, flung upon its couch of hard rock, the head fallen over the edge;