"Yes."
"Returning alone, I met Cramply Hawkshaw, who entered into conversation with me, offered me a cigar, gradually lured me to the summit of the rocks above the Chine. There we sat listening to the village chimes in the old church tower, chatting, smoking, and enjoying the pleasant breeze from the Bristol Channel, till he, inspired by rivalry, jealousy, and hate, or by some fiendish combination of them all, at a moment when I was completely off my guard, by one furious blow struck me over the cliff into the Chine!"
"The Chine—oh, my God!" said Mr. Basset, in a voice that sank low with horror. "We came to look for you, Cramply and I, for he said that he had seen you walking there, and certainly we found marks of a struggle—the gravel dislodged, and the turf torn. You fell into the sea of course, but from that height! How—by what miracle did you escape?"
"A miracle, a narrow chance indeed! A turf-covered ledge received me, and there for many, many hours, more than a night and a day, I remained sleepless, and scarcely daring to move, chilled less perhaps by the cold sea-breeze than by the horror of drowning if I rolled off the narrow shelf, of dying slowly by starvation and falling a prey to the sea-birds at last, till I was saved by my friend Captain Bartelot, whose vessel passed below me."
Excited by the memory of all he had undergone, Morley's voice faltered and grew weak as he spoke.
"Yes, sir," said Bartelot, striking in, "we chanced to see a human figure perched up among the gulls and cormorants, so we made a longer tack close in shore, and sent off a boat's crew, who climbed to the top of the rocks and hove him the end of a line. He was then towed up, and being quite insensible, Morrison, my mate, brought him on board. So, being outward bound—a storm having been signalled by Admiral Fitzroy, and beginning to break white in the offing, we had no time for backing and filling, or chopping about the rocky shore at Acton—I stood right down the Channel, intending to put him aboard the first suitable ship. We never overhauled any but foreigners, so we took him with us to Rio. He has often been well-nigh out of his mind sometimes, sir, about—I may be pardoned mentioning her name—Miss Basset; but he was in safe hands with me, sir, his old schoolfellow, Tom Bartelot."
"A strange and terrible story!" exclaimed Dr. Heriot.
"Poor Ethel, Morley," said Mr. Basset; "oh, what she has endured, and in silence, too!"
"I can know that well, by what I, too, endured. Dear, dear Ethel; and I shall see her——"
"So soon as she can be wisely informed of the great surprise, of the great joy, that await her. But that fellow, Hawkshaw—the fact of how I have been duped, deluded, and disgraced by the pretended friendship of such a man, falls like a thunderbolt upon me!" exclaimed good, easy Mr. Scriven Basset, with more energy than he was wont to exhibit, "and to think of my poor, sweet, and virtuous girls being contaminated by the society of such a man, and my secluded home being polluted by his presence, though sheltered there under the name of his good and worthy father! Damme! it's enough to make one suspicious of all mankind!"