A single movement an inch further, and he would be off his balance.  Behind him was a fall of thirty feet, down to those piles of brick and timber.  And he would make the movement unless he were instantly snatched away.  His head was thrown back,—­his shoulders leaned backward, in the attitude of one who is endeavoring to judge of an effect a little distance off.

Her face turned white, and her limbs quivered under her.

One gasping breath—­and then—­she turned, made two steps upward, and flung herself suddenly, as by mischance, prostrate along the broad, slowly-sloping stairs.

Half a dozen thoughts, in flashing succession, shaped themselves with and into the action.  She wondered, afterward, recollecting them in a distinct order, how there had been time, and how she had thought so fast.

“I must not scream.  I must not move toward him.  I must make him come this way.”

In the two steps up—­“He might not follow; he would not understand.  He must:  I must make him come!” And then she flung herself down, as if she had fallen.

Once down, her strength went from her as she lay; she turned really faint and helpless.

It was all over.  He was beside her.

“What is the matter, Ray?  Are you ill?  Are you hurt?” he said, quickly, stooping down to lift her up.  She sat up, then, on the stair.  She could not stand.

A man’s step came rapidly through the lower hall, ringing upon the solid floor, and sounding through the unfurnished house.

“Sunderline!  Thank heaven, sir, you’re safe!  Do you know how near you were to backing out of that confounded window?  I saw you from the outside.  In the name of goodness, have that place boarded up again!  It shouldn’t be left for five minutes.”

“Was that it?” asked Frank, still bending over Ray, while Mr. Newrich said all this as he hurried up the stairs.

“I didn’t fall, I tumbled down on purpose!  It was the only thing I could think of,” said Ray, nervously smiling; justifying herself, instinctively, from the betrayal of a feeling that makes girls faint away in novels.  “I felt weak afterward.  Anybody would.”

“That’s a fact,” said Mr. Newrich, stopping at the landing, and glancing out through the aperture.  “I shall never think of it, without shivering.  You were as good as gone:  a hair’s breadth more would have done it.  God bless my soul!  If my place had had such a christening as that!”

The whiteness came over Ray Ingraham’s face again She was just rising to her feet, with her hand upon the rail.

“Sit still,” said Frank.  “Let me go and bring you some water.”

“She’ll feel better to be by herself a minute or two, I dare say,” said Mr. Newrich, following Frank as he went down.  He had the tact to think of this, but not to go without saying it.

“A quick-witted young woman,” he remarked, as they passed out of her hearing.  “And sensible enough to keep her wits ahead of her feelings.  If she had come at you, as half the women in the world would have done, you’d be a dead man this minute.  Your sister, Sunderline?”