woods.

They stopped half way,--on the wide second landing where they had
seen, as they went up, that the great window space was open; the
boards that had temporarily covered it having been removed, and the
costly panes and sashes that were to fill it resting against the
wall at one side.

"That is the greatest piece of nonsense in the whole house,"
Sunderline had said. "A crack in that would be the spoiling of a
thousand dollars."

"How very silly," said Ray, quietly. "It is only fit for a church or
a chapel."

"It shuts out the stables," said Sunderline. "Take care of that open
frame," he had added, cautioning her.

Now, coming down, he stopped right here, and stood still with his
back to the opening, looking across the front hall at some
imperfection he fancied he detected in the joining of a carved
cornice. Ray stood on the staircase, a little way up, facing the
gorgeous window, and studying its glow of color.

"It won't do. The meeting of the pattern isn't perfect. Those
grape-bunches come too near together, and there's a leaf-tip taken
off at the corner. What a bungle! Come and look, Ray."

Ray turned her face toward him as he spoke, and saw what thrilled
her through with sudden horror. Saw him, utterly forgetful of where
he stood, against the dangerous vacancy, his heel upon the very
edge, beyond which would be death!

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 tu