yone, in the light of what would soon be made known, would
surely call it suicide. She would think so, too. Death on such terms he
would not willingly have.

Effort followed swiftly upon thought. He clutched wildly at the cliff
side during the first second of that flying descent, and the wind
bending it almost double, brought a stunted fir tree sapling within his
reach. He grasped it, and he was saved. Only a yard or two away, the
cliff side was black with them growing so closely together that he
pulled himself with ease from one to another till he climbed over the
cliff top, and stood again upright on the ground.

His hands were bleeding, and his clothes were hanging round him in rags.
Yet, in a certain sense, his narrow escape had done him good, for it had
brought very vividly before him the impiety of his prayer. He had given
way too long to maddening thoughts, and they had unnerved him. With the
consciousness of his escape, all the manliness of his nature reasserted
itself. He had faced this thing so long that he would face it now to the
end. Let it come when it would, he would summon up all his strength, and
meet it like a man. After death was peace for everlasting. God keep him
in that faith!

He turned away from the cliff, and walked quickly back to the cottage,
making his plans as he went. First he changed all his clothes, and then
opening again his rifled cabinet, he transferred the remaining papers to
a small handbag. These were all his preparations, but when he stepped
out again and walked down the path of his garden, a change had fallen
upon the earth. Faint gleams of dawn were breaking through the eastern
sky, and though the sea was still troubled and crested with white-foamed
breakers, the wind had gone down. Compared with the violence of the
storm a few hours back, the stillness of the gray twilight was full of a
peculiar impressiveness. Peace after the storm. Rest after trouble.

And something of this saddened peace crept into the heart of the
solitary figure crossing the moorland--on his way back to face a doom
which seemed closing in fast around him.

CHAPTER XXI

SIR ALLAN BEAUMERVILLE HAS A CALLER

Sir Allan Beaumerville, Bart., _dilettante_ physician and man of
fashion, was, on the whole, one of the most popular men in London
society. He was rich, of distinguished appearance, had charming manners,
and was a bachelor, which combination might possibly account in some
measure for the hi