"But you surely will demand that he shall do the fair thing by you in the disposition of his property."
"No!" cried Clifford, in a tone of scornful repudiation. "I would never claim kinship with such a man and I want none of his gold. But"—a wistful expression creeping into his eyes and dropping into a musing tone—"I could love that dear child—my little half-sister—very tenderly if I might be allowed to. I have always felt a sort of proprietorship in her ever since the day that I went over that precipice after her—somehow she has seemed to belong to me in a way, though I little imagined that I was rescuing my own sister from a terrible death——"
"'Death!—rescue!'" repeated the squire wonderingly, "what are you talking about, Cliff?"
The young man looked up with a smile and shook himself. "I was dreaming of the past, and hardly realized that I was speaking aloud," he said.
Then he described the event, while the man listened attentively, his eyes fastened upon the manly young face, and a look of wonder grew in his eyes as he began to comprehend the heroism of the deed.
"And you did that! you went over that precipice and down a hundred feet on a rope and back again, the same way, with that child on your back!" he demanded in astonishment when Clifford concluded.
"Of course—there was nothing else to be done."
"Weren't you afraid?—you must have known that you were liable to lose your head, fall and be dashed to atoms on the rocks below."
"Well, I knew there was a risk, of course; but I did not stop to think about being afraid. I should have gone, just the same, if I had known I should fail—I could not leave that child there without making an effort to save her," was the grave reply.
"Well, that makes another!" ejaculated the squire thoughtfully.