“Then wait here a little.”
“You can’t get it!” Millicent cried sharply. “You mustn’t try!”
“It’s quite easy.”
Millicent could not resist the temptation to make a rather dangerous experiment.
“And yet you were afraid a minute or two ago!”
“Yes,” he answered, looking at her steadily. “But that was different.”
She felt her heart-beats quicken and her face grow hot, but she laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“I won’t let you go.”
“You must be reasonable,” he urged, moving a pace away. “That book stands for a good deal of high-grade work. If you lose it, you will have wasted all the first part of your journey. Besides, I should feel very mean if I left it lying there.”
He lowered himself over the edge, and moving from cranny to cranny and stone to stone, went cautiously down, while she watched him with her hands closed tight. What the actual peril was she could not estimate; but it looked appallingly dangerous, particularly when in one place he had to descend from a slightly overhanging stone. He reached the book, however, and came up, and when at length he stood beside her his expression was quite normal and he was only a little breathless. Again she felt a disconcerting thrill which was accompanied by a confused sense of pride. What he had done was in her service, and this time he had shown no sign of fear or strain.