“I’m dreadfully sorry,” she said, almost in tears.  “I can’t help it.  I’m an idiot.”

He held her up with unfailing steadiness.  “All right!  All right!” he said.  “Don’t get frightened!  Move along slowly with me!  Keep your face to the cliff, and you’ll come to some steps!  That’s the way!  Yes, we’ve got to get round that jutting-out bit.  It’s perfectly safe.  Keep your head!  It’s quite easy on the other side.”

It might be perfectly safe for a practised climber, but Juliet’s heart was in her mouth when she reached the projecting corner of cliff where the ledge narrowed to a bare eighteen inches and the rock bulged outwards as if to push off all trespassers.

She came to a standstill, clinging desperately to the unyielding stone.  “I can’t possibly do it,” she said helplessly.

“Yes, you can.  You’ve got to.”  Quick as lightning came the words.  “Go on and don’t be silly!  Of course you can do it!  A child could.”

He loosened her clutching fingers with the words, and pushed her onwards.  She went, driven by a force such as she had never encountered before.

She heard the soft wash of the sea far below her above the sickening thudding of her heart as she crept forward round that terrible bend.  She heard with an acuteness that made her marvel the long sweet note of the nightingale swelling among the bushes above.  She also heard a watch ticking with amazing loudness close to her ear, and was aware of a very firm hand that grasped her shoulder, impelling her forward.  There was no resisting that steady pressure.  She crept on step by step because she could not do otherwise; and when she had rounded that awful corner at last and would fain have stopped to rest after the ordeal, she found that she must needs go on, for he would not suffer any pause.

He had followed her so closely that his hold upon her had never varied.  There seemed to her to be something electric in the very touch of his fingers.  She was fully conscious of the fact that she moved by a strength outside her own.

“Go on!” he said.  “Go on!  There’s Columbus waiting for you.  Can you see the steps?  They’re close here.  They’re a bit rough, I’m afraid.  I made them myself.  But you’ll manage them.”

She came to the steps.  The path had widened somewhat, and the dreadful sense of sheer depth below her was less insistent.  Nevertheless, the way was far from easy, the steps being little more than deep notches in the cliff.  It slanted inwards here however, and she set herself to achieve the ascent with more assurance.

Her guide came immediately behind her.  She felt his hand touch her at every step she took.  Just at the last, realizing the nearness of the summit and safety, she tried to hasten, and in a moment slipped.  He grabbed her instantly, but she could not recover her footing though she made a frantic effort to do so.  She sprawled against the cliff, clutching madly at some tufts of grass and weed above her, while the man behind her gripped and held her there.