“No, no, this must be the stone. I remember that little pool of clear water, and the patch of seaweed. Oh, we ought not to have left her!”
Artingale could not endorse those words, for he thought it very pleasant to have been alone with Cynthia for the past ten minutes—half an hour—hour—or two hours—he had not the slightest idea how long it had been; but the trouble and dread in her agitated young face were so marked that he began to throw off the good-humoured carelessness he felt disposed to show, and bestirred himself to find the missing girl.
“Give me your hand, pet,” he said, “and let’s get on to the next pile. I am sure we shall find her there.”
“No, no, Harry. The more I look the more I feel sure it was here we left her.”
“Well, perhaps it was, little one,” he said, looking down into the earnest eyes, “and she has grown tired, and begun to walk back. We shall find her sitting down waiting for us.”
Cynthia gave him her hand, and they ran for a short distance over the shingle; but it was too rough to go far save at a walk, and then, reaching another of the little wildernesses of masses of rock, the result of a fall from the towering cliffs, they searched about for a few minutes without result, and then walked a little way down towards the sea, so as to command a view back towards the battery and the works at the east end of the town.
There was a man tramping along with a shrimping net over his shoulder, an old lady seated on the shingle under an umbrella, a girl with a yellow-covered book perched upon a stone, and about twenty yards out an elderly gentleman with his trousers tucked up, standing in the water reading a newspaper; not a soul besides on that unfrequented part.
“Oh, Harry!” gasped Cynthia, who was ready to burst into tears.
“Why, you little goose,” he said tenderly; “there’s nothing to be afraid of. She isn’t along here, that’s certain.”
“And yet you say there’s nothing to be afraid of,” half sobbed Cynthia.