p again, and strode along over the slippery, slimy masses of
rock which lay under my feet, covered with seaweed.

"Olivia," I said, "I must have my right hand free to steady myself with.
Put both your arms round my neck, and cling to me so. Don't touch my
arms or shoulders."

Yet the clinging of her arms about my neck, and her cheek close to mine,
almost unnerved me. I held her fast with my left arm, and steadied
myself with my right. We gained in a minute or two the mouth of the
tunnel. The drift was pouring into it with a force almost too great for
me, burdened as I was. But there was the pause of the tide, when the
waves rushed out again in white floods, leaving the water comparatively
shallow. There were still six or eight yards to traverse before we could
reach an archway in the cliffs, which would land us in safety in the
outer caves. Across this small space the tide came in strongly, beating
against the foot of the rocks, and rebounding with great force. There
was some peril; but we had no alternative. I lifted Olivia a little
higher against my shoulder, for her long serge dress wrapped dangerously
around us both; and then, waiting for the pause in the throbbing of the
tide, I dashed hastily across.

One swirl of the water coiled about us, washing up nearly to my throat,
and giving me almost a choking sensation of dread; but before a second
could swoop down upon us I had staggered half-blinded to the arch, and
put down Olivia in the small, secure cave within it. She had not spoken
once. She did not seem able to speak now. Her large, terrified eyes
looked up at me dumbly, and her face was white to the lips. I clasped
her in my arms once more, and kissed her forehead and lips again and
again in a paroxysm of passionate love and gladness.

"Thank God!" I cried. "How I love you, Olivia!"

I had told her only a few minutes before that the brain is ineffaceably
stamped with the impress of every event in our lives. But how much more
deeply do some events burn themselves there than others' I see it all
now--more clearly, it seems to me, than my eyes saw it then. There is
the huge, high entrance to the outer caves where we are standing, with a
massive lintel of rocks overhead, all black but for a few purple and
gray tints scattered across the blackness. Behind us the sea is
glistening, and prismatic colors play upon the cliffs. Shadows fall from
rocks we cannot see. Olivia stands before me, pale and terrified, the
wa