'Henry,' said she, shocked at my irreverence, 'it _is_ so; the Bible says it, and all life shows it. Ah! I wonder what wretch committed the sacrilege, and why he had no pity on his poor innocent children!' While she was talking, I stooped and picked up the casket from which the letters had been forced by the fall. She had not seen it. I put it in my pocket. 'Henry, I am so grieved for you,' said Winifred again, and she came and wound her fingers in mine. Grieved for _me_! But where was her father's dead body? That was the thought that appalled me. Should we come upon it in the _débris_? What was to be done? Owing to the tide, there was no turning back now to Flinty Point. The projecting debris must be passed. There was no dallying for a moment. If we lingered we should be caught by the tide in Mousetrap Cove, and then nothing could save us. Suppose in passing the _débris_ we should come upon her father's corpse. The idea was insupportable. 'Thank God, however, I murmured, 'she will not even _then_ know the very worst; she will see the corpse of her father who has fallen with the cliff, but she need not and will not associate him with the sacrilege and the curse.' As I picked up the letters that had been scattered from the casket, she said, 'I cannot get that dreadful curse out of my head; to think that the children of the despoiler should be cursed by God, and cursed by your father, and yet they are as innocent as I am.' 'Best to forget it,' said I, standing still, for I dared not move towards the _débris_. 'We must get on, Henry,' said she, 'for look, the tide is unusually high to-night. You have turned back, I see, because Flinty Point is already deep in the water.' 'Yes,' I said, 'I must turn Needle Point with you. But as to the sacrilege, let us dismiss it from our minds; what cannot be helped had better be forgotten.'