Polly made no answer, but as she quickened her steps towards the place, he followed her, half vexed at her persistence.
'My dear child, as though your Aunt Milly would do anything so absurd,' he remonstrated. 'Why, the rocks are quite unsafe after the rain, and the wind is enough to cut one in halves.'
'It is Aunt Milly. I told you so,' returned Polly, triumphantly, as she descended the step; 'there is her blue serge and her beaver hat. Look! she sees us; she is waving her hand.'
Dr. Heriot suppressed the exclamation that rose to his lips.
'Take care, Polly, the steps are slippery; you had better not venture on the stones,' he said, peremptorily. 'Keep where you are, and I will bring Miss Lambert back.'
Mildred saw him coming; her heart palpitated a little.
'He will think me foolish, little better than a child,' she said to herself; he will not know why I came here;' and her courage evaporated. All at once she felt weak; the rocks were certainly terribly slippery.
'Wait for me; I will help you!' he shouted, seeing her indecision; but either Mildred did not hear, or she misunderstood him; the stone was too high for her unassisted efforts; she tried one lower; it was wet; her foot slipped, she tried to recover herself, fell, and then, to the unspeakable horror of the two watching her above, rolled from rock to rock and disappeared.
Polly's wild shriek of dismay rang through the place, but Dr. Heriot never lost his presence of mind for a moment.
'Stay where you are; on your peril disobey me!' he cried, in a voice of thunder, to the affrighted girl; and then, though with difficulty, he steered his way between the slippery stones, and over the dangerous fissures. He could see her now; some merciful jag in the rocks had caught part of her dress, and arrested her headlong progress. The momentary obstacle had enabled her, as she slipped into one of the awful fissures that open into Coop Kernan Hole, to snatch with frantic hands at the slimy rock, her feet clinging desperately to the narrow slippery ledge.