When the rope was untied, I said, ‘Wait till I call,’ and I ran round the corner of the debris.  The great upright wall of earth and sward, from which had stared the body of Wynne, had fallen, hiding him and his crime together!

To return round the corner of the landslip and call Winifred was the work of an instant, and, quick as she was in answering my call, by the time she had reached me I had thrown off my coat and boots.

‘Now for a run and a tussle with the waves, Winnie,’ I said.

‘Then we are not going to die?’

’We are going to live.  Run; in six more returns of a wave like that there will he four feet of water at the Point.’

‘Come along, Snap,’ said Winifred, and she flew along the sands without another word.

Ah, she could run!—­faster than I could, with my bruised heel!  She was there first.

‘Leap in, Winnie,’ I cried, ’and struggle towards the Point; it will save time.  I shall he with you in a second.’

Winifred plunged into the tide (Snap following with a bark), and fought her way so bravely that my fear now was lest she should be out of her depth before I could reach her, and then, clad as she was, she would certainly drown.  But never tor a moment did her good sense leave her.  When she was nearly waist-high she stopped and turned round, gazing at me as I tore through the shallow water—­gazing with a wistful, curious look that her face would have worn had we been playing.

To get round the Point and pull Winifred round was no slight task, for the water was nearly up to my breast, and a woman’s clothing seems designed for drowning her.  Any other woman than Winifred would have been drowned, and would have drowned me with her.  But in straits of this kind the only safety lies in courage.

‘What a night’s adventures!’ said Winifred, after we had turned the Point, and were walking through the shallow water towards the gangway.

We hurried towards the cottage as fast as our wet clothes would permit.  On reaching it we found the door unlocked, and entered.

‘Father has again gone to bed,’ said Winifred, ’and left no candle burning for me.’

And without seeing her face, I knew by the tremor of the hand I clasped that she was listening with shame for the drunken snore that she would never hear again.

I lighted a match, which with a candle I found on a chair.

‘Your father is no doubt sound asleep,’ I said; ’you will scarcely awake him to-night?’

‘Oh dear, no,’ said Winifred.  ’Good-night.  You look quite ill.  Ever since you lifted up your head from my breast, when you were thinking so hard, you have looked quite ill.’

Suddenly I remembered that I must be up and on the sands betimes in the morning, to see whether the tide had washed away the fallen earth so as to expose Wynne’s body.  To prevent Winifred from seeing the stolen cross was now the one important thing in the world.