“Dear me, I wish I had not come up,” exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt.
“We shall be slower than you two in going down,” the vicar said over his shoulder, “and so, don’t you start till we are nearly at the bottom, or you will run over us and break our necks somewhere in the darkness of the turret.”
Accordingly Elfride and Knight waited on the leads till the staircase should be clear. Knight was not in a talkative mood that morning. Elfride was rather wilful, by reason of his inattention, which she privately set down to his thinking her not worth talking to. Whilst Knight stood watching the rise of the cloud, she sauntered to the other side of the tower, and there remembered a giddy feat she had performed the year before. It was to walk round upon the parapet of the tower—which was quite without battlement or pinnacle, and presented a smooth flat surface about two feet wide, forming a pathway on all the four sides. Without reflecting in the least upon what she was doing she now stepped upon the parapet in the old way, and began walking along.
“We are down, cousin Henry,” cried Mrs. Swancourt up the turret. “Follow us when you like.”
Knight turned and saw Elfride beginning her elevated promenade. His face flushed with mingled concern and anger at her rashness.
“I certainly gave you credit for more common sense,” he said.
She reddened a little and walked on.
“Miss Swancourt, I insist upon your coming down,” he exclaimed.
“I will in a minute. I am safe enough. I have done it often.”
At that moment, by reason of a slight perturbation his words had caused in her, Elfride’s foot caught itself in a little tuft of grass growing in a joint of the stone-work, and she almost lost her balance. Knight sprang forward with a face of horror. By what seemed the special interposition of a considerate Providence she tottered to the inner edge of the parapet instead of to the outer, and reeled over upon the lead roof two or three feet below the wall.