At last they arrived in the little room with its giant reflectors of silvered copper, and its great lamp set on a circular table. Outside, ran a narrow balcony with iron railing. Winifred stepped out onto the ledge, clinging nervously to Jimmy, who professed a great desire to sit on the railing. The wind here was so strong that it gave one a feeling that the building was swaying, though it stood firm as a cliff of granite. Flint leaned over the railing. "See!" he said, "there is a great white gull which has beaten itself to death against the light, and fallen there, close to that fringy line of mottled seaweed on the beach." "Don't!" exclaimed Winifred, turning pale, and leaning further back against the light-house wall. Flint saw in an instant that she was feeling dizzy, but thought it best for her to ignore the fact. "Come," he said, "we must be going down now, unless Dr. Cricket is to lose his game entirely. You go first, Jim! I will come next." Jimmy started down, whooping as he went, for the pleasure of hearing his voice echo and re-echo from the bare walls. Flint glanced somewhat anxiously at Winifred. He saw her put her foot upon the first stair and then draw back. At the same instant he caught the cause of her terror. Her bandaged wrist prevented her grasping the balustrade, or getting any better support than the smooth wall to which to cling. "Put your hand on my shoulder, and count the steps aloud as you go." He spoke like one who does not question obedience; and, somewhat to her own surprise, Winifred found herself meekly doing as she was bid. The last part of his advice was even better than the first, for it occupied her mind, and also gave her the encouragement of feeling that at each step she had lessened the distance between her and _terra firma_ by one. Flint felt the hand upon his shoulder tremble like a leaf; but he never turned his head, only moved steadily onward and downward, with a regularity and solidity which soon told upon Winifred's nervous dizziness. When she reached the ground, and stood once more in the sunlight of the open doorway, she looked at him with a little tremulous smile. "A hundred and seventeen!" she exclaimed. "I am sure I shall never forget how many steps there are leading to the Bug Light." "What a fool you are, Fred!" Jimmy remarked, with family frankness. "I am," admitted Winifred. "No one knows it better than I, except, perhaps, Mr. Flint." "I know nothing of the kind," her companion answered with unwonted cordiality. "Any one may be subject to a fit of dizziness, and to be minus an arm under such circumstances makes the situation really uncomfortable. We must try it again some day, to give you an opportunity to prove to yourself that it was only an affair of the moment." "Dear me!" thought Winifred to herself, "why can't he always be nice like that! He seems to be a queer kind of stratified rock; you never know what you are going to strike next."