At the end of the second day's journey they were to pass the night at a lonely house celebrated for the neighbourhood of a magnificent waterfall. They had a long day's journey, and the women were quite tired out. When they reached the house, the rector led his wife within, without proceeding onward to the chasm, from which the roar of the waterfall could be plainly heard. Mary, too, was very tired, but she insisted on following Clement, who cared not to rest so soon; so they climbed together higher up the steps, and ever louder the sound of the roaring water was borne towards them. Half-way up the steep path Mary's last strength deserted her: "I will sit here," she said; "go on to the end, and come back for me when you have seen enough." He begged her to let him take her back to the house first, but she was already seated, and so he left her, and advanced towards the roar, deeply affected by the solitude and majesty of the scene. The girl sat on a stone and awaited his return. She thought that he lingered very long away. A cold shiver struck through her, and the distant muttering thunder of the fall terrified her, "Why does he not come back?" she thought to herself; "he will forget me in his joy now as ever. I wish I could find my way back to the house, that I might get warm." So she sat, full of anxiety, and listening intently. Suddenly she fancied that she distinguished his voice calling to her; trembling, she started up. What should she do? Almost involuntarily she took a step forward, but her foot slipped, she tottered and fell. Fortunately the stones near the path were overgrown with moss, but still the fall nearly stunned her, and she cried wildly for help. In vain! her voice could not reach Clement, who stood close to the abyss, surrounded by the roarings of the fall, and the house was far too distant. A bitter pain shot through her heart as she lay there between the stones, neglected and helpless. With tears of despair in her eyes, she raised herself painfully. All that she loved best seemed to her at this moment hateful, and the bitterness of her soul permitted no thought of the nearness of the Omnipresent to rise before her. So Clement found her when, for her sake, he tore himself away from the witchery of the marvellous scene. "I come!" he cried to her from a distance. "It is fortunate that you did not go with me. The path above is so narrow that the smallest slip would cost a life! How unfathomably deep it plunged, and roared and sprang up in clouds of spray, till one's senses were lost! Feel how sprinkled I am with the fine water-spray!--but what is the matter with you? You are as cold as ice, and your lips tremble. Come--I was wrong to leave you in the chilly air--God forbid that it should have made you ill!"