Mr. Falkirk seemed uneasy. He only looked at the little speaker, busy with her strawberries, and spoke not, but Rollo answered instead.
'They are looking over the rocks and endeavouring to compute the depth to the bottom, with a reference to your probable safety.' There was a shimmer of light in the speaker's eye.
'If they are taking mathematical views of the subject, they are in a dangerous way! Mr. Falkirk, it is imperatively necessary that I should at once rejoin the rest of society,— will you let yourself be torn from this rock, like a sea anemone?'
Mr. Falkirk had been for a few minutes taking a minute and business-like survey of the place.
'I see no way of getting you out, Wych,' he said despondingly, 'without a rope. I must go back for one, I believe, and you and society must wait.'
'How will you get out, sir?'
'I don't know. If I cannot, I'll send Rollo.'
'Pray send him, sir,—by all means.'
'I can get you out without a rope,' said that gentleman, very dispassionately.
'Pray do, then,' said the other.