rom the grave, and I knelt on the sands and
prayed. Henry, Henry, don't go in the church to-night.'

That Winifred's words affected me profoundly I need not say. The
shriek, whatever it was, had been responded to by her soul and by
mine in the same mysterious way. But the important thing to do was to
prevent her from imagining that her superstitious terrors had
affected me.

'Really, Winnie,' I said, 'this double-voiced shriek of yours, which
is at once the shriek of the Welshman at the bottom of the swollen
falls and the Celtic call from the grave, is the most dramatic shriek
I ever heard of. It would make its fortune on the stage. But with all
its power of being the shriek of two different people at once, it
must not prevent my going into the church to do my duty; so we had
better part here at this very spot. You go up the cliffs by Needle
Point, and _I_ will take Flinty Point gangway.'

'But why not ascend the cliffs together?' said Winifred.

'Why, the prying coastguard might be passing, and might wonder to
see us in the churchyard on the night of my father's funeral (he
might take us for two ghosts in love, you know). However, we need not
part just yet. We can walk on a little farther into the cove before
our paths diverge.'

Winifred made no demur, though she looked puzzled, as we were then
much nearer to the gangway I had selected for myself than to the
gangway I had allotted to her.

IX

Winifred and I were in the little horseshoe curve called 'Church
Cove,' but also called sometimes 'Mousetrap Cove,' because, as I have
already mentioned, a person imprisoned in it by the tide could only
escape by means of a boat from the sea.

Needle Point was at one extremity of the cove and Flinty Point at the
other. In front of us, therefore, at the very centre of the cliff
that surrounded the cove, was the old church, which I was to reach as
soon as possible. To reach a gangway up the cliff it was necessary to
pass quite out of the cove, round either Flinty Point or Needle
Point; for the cliff _within_ the cove was perpendicular, and in some
parts actually overhanging.

When we reached the softer sands near the back of the cove, where the
walking was difficult, I bade Winifred good-night, and she turned
somewhat demurely to the left on her way to Needle Point, between
which and the spot where we now parted she would have to pass below
the church on the cliff, and close by the great masses of debris from
the ne