rd.
But then there came a loud crash and a thunder from behind the
landslip.

'The settlement!' I cried. 'The coming in of the tide has made the
landslip settle!'

When I sat with closed eyes examining my fiery photograph, I had
calculated the 'settlement' at the return of the tide as being among
the chances of escape. But feeling myself to be engaged in a duel
with Circumstance (more cruel than the fiends), I believed that the
settlement would come too late for us, or even if it did not come too
late, it might not hide away the spectacle. The settlement had come;
what had it done for us? This I must know at once.

'Untie the rope,' I said; 'quick, untie the rope, there is a
settlement of the landslip.'

'But what has the settlement to do with us?' said Winnie.

'It _has_ to do with us, dear; untie the rope. It has much to do with
us, Winnie,' I said; for now the determination to save her life came
on me stronger than ever.

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