There was no way up the cliffs between these points; they rise as a white precipitous wall three hundred feet. But she knew the strand—every reef, indentation, every buttress of chalk, and every cave. She had paced it a hundred times pebble-hunting.
On this occasion she did not look further for stones; she had cares that weighed on her mind and occupied her thoughts.
So she tramped along till she reached a doubly familiar spot. Immediately aloft stood the cottage she had occupied from infancy. A hedge had skirted the edge of the crags as a protection, and she had been prohibited from going beyond that hedge, even from climbing it.
Now, on looking up, she was startled to observe a displacement of the rock and a dislocation in the hedge. The cliff had parted from the down and taken as it were a step seaward, and was slightly lurching. The hedge was discontinuous, and she could see that a rift had formed that shore deep into where their garden had been.
Winefred was so surprised at what she saw that, regardless of risk, she resolved to examine the phenomenon closely.
Instead of treading at the very margin of the retreating tide, where the larger shingle ceased and gravel began, she advanced to the foot of the rocks, and now saw that the cleft descended from the summit to the very base. An entire shoulder or mass had separated from the main body, and was parted from it by a chasm clean cut as by a knife. Not only so, but the portion that had detached itself had sunk. Winefred was surprised at what she saw, and being of an inquisitive disposition, and regardless of danger, she ventured close to the mouth of the chasm. It was torn through the chalky superincumbent beds and through the subjacent standstone, and a portion of turfy down had moved seaward, but had done so without any violent oscillation, for it had not been so shaken as to break into fragments and strew the shore with dislodged masses. On the contrary, it had parted from the mainland with a minimum of violence, and it was in sinking that it had detached itself.
Winefred first peered into the rift, then cautiously entered it, and looked up at the white walls barred with strata of flints, some of which were snapped across by the disruption.
No stones were falling. No further movement was perceptible. With beating heart the girl not only entered the chasm but pursued her course up it.
The sky above showed as a white silk ribbon. Abundance of light flowed in from the mouth and from above, but the air was chill and the smell damp and earthy.