He reached the door and fumbled for the latch; but ere he found it, it was flung open, and a strange and tragic figure met him on the threshold.

“Ah!” cried a woman’s voice.  “It is you!  Where—­where is Rufus?”

Adam’s keen and birdlike eyes nearly leapt from his head.  “Why—­Columbine?” he said.

She was dressed in Rufus’s suit of navy serge.  It hung about her in clumsy folds, and over her shoulders and about her snow-white throat her glorious hair streamed like a black veil, still wet and shining in the lamplight.

She flung out her hands to him in piteous appeal.  “Oh, Adam!” she said.  “Have you seen them?  Have you seen Rufus?  He went—­he went an hour ago—­to save Mr. Knight from the quicksand!”

Adam’s quick brain leapt to instant activity.  The girl’s presence baffled him, but it was no time for explanation.  In some way she had discovered Knight in danger, and had rushed to Rufus for help.  Then—­then—­that vision of his from the quay—­that flash of revelation—­had been no dream, after all!  He had seen Rufus indeed—­and probably for the last time in his life.

He stood, struck dumb for the moment, recalling every detail of the clinging figure that had hung above the leaping waves.  Then the tragedy in Columbine’s face made him pull himself together once more.  He took her trembling hands.

“It’s no good, my girl,” he said.  “I seen him.  Yes, I seen him.  I didn’t believe my eyes, but I know now it was true.  He was hanging on to a bit of rock half-way up the Spear Point, and t’other chap was lying across his shoulder.  They’ve both been washed away by this, for the water’s still coming up.  There’s not the ghost of a chance for ’em.  I say it ’cos I know—­not the ghost of a chance!”

A wild cry broke from the girl’s lips.  She wrenched her hands free and beat them upon her breast.  Then suddenly a burst of wild tears came to her.  She leaned against the cottage wall and sobbed in an agony that possessed her, soul and body.

Adam stood and looked at her.  There was something terrible about the abandonment of her grief.  It made him feel that his own was almost insignificant beside it.  He had never seen any woman weep like that before.  The anguish of it went through his heart.

He moved at length, laid a very gentle hand upon her shaking shoulder.

“My girl—­my girl!” he said.  “Don’t take on so!  I never thought as you cared a ha’p’orth for poor Rufus, though o’ course I always knew as he loved you like mad.”

She bowed herself lower under his hand.  “And now I’ve killed him!” she gasped forth inarticulately.  “I’ve killed him!”

“No, no, no!” protested Adam.  “That ain’t reasonable.  Come, now—­you’re distraught!  You don’t know what you’re saying.  My Rufus is a fine chap.  He’d take most any risk to save a life.  He’s got a big heart in him, and he don’t stop to count the cost.”