“I’m as hot and excited to-night as can be,” he said, half laughing. “Well, no wonder. It’s enough to turn a stronger brain than mine. Such good fortune does not fall to every man’s lot in so short a time. Now suppose I behave like a rational being?”
Just then there was the rattle of stones on one of the rough paths that led from the cliff to the beach.
“Whoever it was has fallen,” he cried. “Why, what madness to attempt to go down there in the dark! I shall break my own neck going after her.”
Risk or none, he began to descend the steep path, but only to find that whoever had fallen had risen, and was making for the beach.
“Why, what folly,” thought Geoffrey, as he stopped in the semi-darkness. “It must be some one who knows her way pretty well.”
For a moment he thought of calling to her, but there seemed no reason for such a proceeding, and he felt that he might frighten whoever it was; and at last, concluding that there was no occasion for him to follow, he was about to turn back, when a thought flashed across him which made him tremble.
“Good heavens!” he ejaculated, “it’s Madge!” and full of the horrible thought that in her trouble she could have come there but for one purpose, he began rapidly to descend the rest of the way, falling heavily twice in his haste to reach the beach, and running no little risk of serious injury.
There was about a hundred yards of wave-worn granite between the cliff foot and where the calm sea heaved gently, and fringed the rocks with a soft phosphorescent light; and here, in the shadow, he paused to try and make out in which direction the figure had gone. His heart was beating wildly, as much from excitement as his exertion, and his sole thought now was to over take and prison the hand of the poor girl he believed it to be.
It was a horrible sensation that of standing helplessly there, eager to stay the wretched girl, but ignorant of the way she had taken. The faint wash of the sea drowned her footsteps, and as he gazed in every direction the dark, rocky beach looked weird and strange, the faint gleam of the phosphorescence adding to the wildness of the scene.
“Madge—Madge Mullion—Madge!” he shouted hoarsely, troubling himself little now who might hear; but there was no reply, and, cautiously making his way amongst the rocks and over the slippery patches of bladder-wrack and broad slimy-fronded weed, he narrowly escaped a fall.