"Nay, but I will pay my fee," said Richard, gallantly; and, since their cheeks were almost touching as it was, the debt was easily discharged on her ripe lips.
"For shame, Sir!" cried the girl, indignantly; and there was something in her face and voice which showed him that her anger was not feigned. "I am sorry I brought you here, mistaking you for a gentleman. Here is the key, Sir; but I go back alone." And she freed herself roughly from his arm, and turned to go.
"For Heaven's sake, don't!" cried Richard, earnestly. "You may call me any thing you please, but do not let my rudeness prove your peril. I _was_ rude, but, on my honor, I did not intend to be so. I meant no harm, although I see I have vexed you. Forgive me, pray; I did not mean to be either ungenerous or ungrateful. Is it thought so very wrong at Gethin--even with such great temptation--"
"Yes, Sir, it is," she broke in, vehemently; "and I was wrong to come with you."
"Nay, don't say that," pleaded the young fellow. "How could you be wrong to do so great a kindness to a stranger as you have done to me? It was my sense of it--my heartfelt sense, believe me, of the trouble and toil you have undergone for my sake; and I don't deny, Harry, your beauty too, of which I have never seen the like. But there, I am offending you again. Pray, come into the shelter; it makes me sick to see you in such danger;" and to make room for her, and at the same time to stand as much apart from her as possible, he stepped back, forgetting the scanty space on which he stood, and--fell!
A yard--a mile--he scarcely could say which, so overwhelming for the instant was his sense of peril! He only knew that he was flying through space. Then, suddenly, his feet found foothold, and his hands clung to the gray rock, and the driving wind beat on his body ceaselessly, and seemed to nail him where he clung.
Was it the scream of gull, or piercing cry of some spirit of the air, that rang through his brain? or was it, indeed, the agonizing shriek of a woman? He heard it plainly; but Harry never knew whether she had shrieked or not. She was aware of nothing except that this unhappy man was perishing--had, perhaps, already perished--for her sake; through fear for her safety, and his wish not to give her offense. She was on her knees upon the ledge, and craning over it with horror-stricken face the next instant, and could see him plainly. His feet had fallen upon that very part of the old path which the storms of last winter had torn and jagged away. A few jolting fragments of rock were all that was left of it--insufficient even for a practiced cragsman to make his way along on either side. His head--she could not see his face--was but a yard beneath her; but how could she get at him?