t terrible wall of rock. A hard scramble over the
fallen stones brought him to a spot where, looking up, the top of the
wall frowned down on him from a sheer height of five hundred feet, while
half-way down, like a narrow scratch along the face of the cliff, he
could just detect the ledge on which last night they had sat out the
storm.

There, among the stones, shattered and cold, lay all that remained of
the brave Julius. His fate must have overtaken him before he had gone
twenty yards on his desperate errand, and almost before that final howl
reached his master's ears all must have been over.

Jeffreys, as he tenderly lifted his lost friend in his arms, thought
bitterly and reproachfully of the dog's strange conduct yesterday--his
evident depression and forebodings of evil--the result, no doubt, of
illness, but making that last act of self-devotion all the more heroic.

He made a grave there at the base of that grand cliff, and piled up a
little cairn to mark the last resting-place of his friend. Then, truly
a mourner, he returned slowly to Wildtree.

At the door he encountered Mrs Rimbolt, who glared at him and swept
past.

"How is Percy this morning?" he inquired.

"No thanks to you, Mr Jeffreys," said the lady, with a double venom in
her tones, "he is alive."

"His arm, is it--?"

"Go to your work, sir," said the lady; "I have no wish to speak to you."

Jeffreys bowed and retreated. He had expected such a reception, and
just now it neither dismayed nor concerned him.

On the staircase he met Raby. She looked pale and anxious, but
brightened up as she saw him.

"Mr Jeffreys," said she, "are you really up, and none the worse?"

"I am well, thank you," said he, "but very anxious to hear about Percy."

"He has had a bad night with his arm, but the doctor says he is going on
all right. What a terrible adventure you had. Percy told me a little
of it. Oh, Mr Jeffreys, it is all my fault!"

Jeffreys could not help smiling.

"By what stretch of ingenuity do you make that out?"

"It was I suggested your coaxing Percy out, you know; I might have been
the death of you both."

"You did not send the wind, did you, or the mist? If you did, of course
you are quite entitled to all the credit."

"Don't laugh about it, please. Percy was telling me how if it had not
been for you--"

"He would never have been in any danger. Perhaps he is right. By the
way. Miss Atherton, is there any chance of seein