d said that the accident must have happened
on the side of the quicksand. My tongue was loosened at that. "No
accident!" I told him. "When she came to this place, she came weary of
her life, to end it here."

He started back from me. "How do you know?" he asked. The rest of them
crowded round. The Sergeant recovered himself instantly. He put them
back from me; he said I was an old man; he said the discovery had shaken
me; he said, "Let him alone a little." Then he turned to Yolland, and
asked, "Is there any chance of finding her, when the tide ebbs again?"
And Yolland answered, "None. What the Sand gets, the Sand keeps for
ever." Having said that, the fisherman came a step nearer, and addressed
himself to me.

"Mr. Betteredge," he said, "I have a word to say to you about the young
woman's death. Four foot out, broadwise, along the side of the Spit,
there's a shelf of rock, about half fathom down under the sand. My
question is--why didn't she strike that? If she slipped, by accident,
from off the Spit, she fell in where there's foothold at the bottom, at
a depth that would barely cover her to the waist. She must have waded
out, or jumped out, into the Deeps beyond--or she wouldn't be missing
now. No accident, sir! The Deeps of the Quicksand have got her. And they
have got her by her own act."

After that testimony from a man whose knowledge was to be relied on, the
Sergeant was silent. The rest of us, like him, held our peace. With one
accord, we all turned back up the slope of the beach.

At the sand-hillocks we were met by the under-groom, running to us from
the house. The lad is a good lad, and has an honest respect for me. He
handed me a little note, with a decent sorrow in his face. "Penelope
sent me with this, Mr. Betteredge," he said. "She found it in Rosanna's
room."

It was her last farewell word to the old man who had done his
best--thank God, always done his best--to befriend her.

"You have often forgiven me, Mr. Betteredge, in past times. When you
next see the Shivering Sand, try to forgive me once more. I have found
my grave where my grave was waiting for me. I have lived, and died, sir,
grateful for your kindness."

There was no more than that. Little as it was, I hadn't manhood enough
to hold up against it. Your tears come easy, when you're young, and
beginning the world. Your tears come easy, when you're old, and leaving
it. I burst out crying.

Sergeant Cuff took a step nearer to me--meaning k