"Do not come too near the edge, brave girl," cried Richard, beginning to be conscious of her efforts. "Is there no rope nor ladder?"
"Yes," answered the girl. "Keep heart. Do not look down. I must be five minutes gone—not more."
She was up, and with the gate-key in her hand, ere she had done speaking. Great Heaven! would that door never open? How her trembling hands missed the keyhole; and when the key was in, how the rusty wards opposed its turning. Then when the door was opened, it seemed as though the winds had husbanded their strength behind it for one wild sortie, with such fury did they rush out to beat her back. But she struggled in somehow, and on across the howling waste of clifftop to a little hut of stone, which formed the covering of a well. There, as she expected, she found a rope coiled up, which was used to draw up water in an iron cup, to gratify the curiosity of visitors as much as to quench their thirst; for it was strange, indeed, to meet with fresh water there, the presence of which, no doubt, had caused the place to be chosen for a fastness in old time. With this she hurried back; and fixing one end firmly round the door-post, she looped the other in a slip-knot, and lowered it carefully to Richard. "Put this beneath your arms," she said; "the rope is strong and firmly fastened. You must climb up by it, hand over hand."
It was not so easy a task for the young artist as for a Gethin man; but he was strong and active; and where his chief difficulty lay, which was at the clifftop, the girl's willing arms assisted him.
"You have saved my life, Harry," were his first words, when he stood in safety. "How shall I ever repay you?"
Then this brave girl, who had never faltered where action was necessary, began to sob and cry.
He took her hand and covered it with kisses. "I may kiss this," said he, plaintively, "may I not?"
She did not withdraw her fingers, but neither did she cease from weeping. Her grief seemed to be something more than that resulting from the tension of strong feelings suddenly relaxed.
"Let me go home, let me go home!" was her sole reply to all his entreaties that she should rest a while, and strive to calm herself. It was with difficulty that he could support her down the steep, so violently did she tremble. When they reached the foot of it she turned to Richard and murmured: "I have one favor to ask of you, Sir. Will you grant it to me?"
"Most certainly, dear girl. It would be gross ingratitude indeed if I did not."