"'Tis I, Grace—your father! Be of good cheer. I'm close—I'm close!"
He rushed hither and thither, bruising himself against the broken walls. Then he entered the cul-de-sac, and stood, and cried out again.
"Where are you now? How shall I come at you?"
"I am here beneath you, dear father! There is a great stone—part of the floor where you stand. It reaches to the left-hand wall. Stamp every way, and when you stamp upon the inner edge the stone will turn slowly and show you a steep stair."
She heard him grope about and stamp as she directed. Then he struck the cover and it turned, and showed him steps that sank into the darkness. Slowly he let himself down, and soon stood at the bottom with a starry space of sky above and the glimmer of the moss around him.
"Move gently towards me," cried Grace. "A flat stone lies between us, with flint and steel and candles upon it."
The master obeyed, soon lighted a dip on Lovey Lee's altar, then hurried where his girl lay fast bound. Malherb released her and she fainted. He chafed her blue, swollen wrists and, for the first time, thought of the dead miser without a pang.
Grace slowly regained her senses, but not her courage. She clung to her father and wept and prayed him for the love of God not to loose her hand from between his own.
"Save me—save me from her," she said. "Let me die anywhere but here—not smothered and starved here. Never let me see her and hear her voice again, or I shall go mad."
"You are safe, my little child. Cry no more; tremble no more; 'tis your own father has found you."