"Yes," she replied, hoarsely. "It is Danvers! Ride—ride for your life to Sunset Hall, and bring men and ropes to take him up!"
In an instant he was in the saddle, and off. In less than an hour he returned, with half the population in the village after him, whom the news of the catastrophe had brought together.
Ropes were lowered to Gipsy, who still remained where Archie had left her, and the lifeless form of the young man drawn up. Gipsy, refusing all aid, clambered up the side, and the mournful cavalcade set out for Sunset Hall.
He was quite dead. It was evident he had fallen, in the darkness, into the gorge, and been instantly killed. His fair hair hung, clotted with blood, round his forehead: and a fearful gash in the temple showed the wound whence his young life had flowed away. And Gipsy, feeling as though she were his murderess, sat by his side, and, gazing on the still, cold form, shed the first bitter tears that had ever fallen from her eyes. By some strange coincidence, it was in that self-same spot the dead body of Barry Oranmore had been found.
Poor Gipsy! The sunshine was fast fading out of her sky, and the clouds of fate gathering thick and fast around her. She wept now for another—knowing not how soon she was to weep for herself.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SPIDER WEAVES HIS WEB.
"A fearful sign stands in thy house of life—
An enemy—a fiend lurks close behind
The radiance of thy planet. Oh, be warned!"
—Coleridge.