Then exhaustion would bring sleep, but a sleep haunted by dreams, and, at times, visions wild as those of an opium-eater; thus, for many a night, long after this period, the episodes of that eventful evening would come back to memory with all their harrowing details: the advancing tide rolling against the impending cliffs and thundering in the Pixies' Hole, after it had swallowed the drenched sand; her retreating step by step fearfully and breathlessly before it, in terror of being drowned on one hand and of falling down the mine on the other! Anon, she would imagine herself swung up that terrible shaft through darkness and space, and that the rope was just on the eve of _parting_, when she would wake with a half-stifled scream to find that she was in the arms of her mamma, who was soothing and caressing her. CHAPTER XVII. THE TRECARRELS. Duly next day, at a proper visiting-hour, the handsome and well-appointed carriage of General Trecarrel, occupied only by his two daughters and Audley Trevelyan, was seen bowling down the avenue of the villa at Porthellick, with Rajah bounding before it in as much glee as if at home in Thibet, "the northern land of snow," where many a time he had scoured along the slopes of the Himalaya range and the Dwalaghiri in pursuit of the Cashmere goat and the Tartarian yak; but, as the event proved, the visit was in vain: the two ladies could only leave their cards, as they were informed that both Mrs. and Miss Devereaux were too much indisposed after the events of yesterday to receive visitors. "It will be a case which warm drinks and cosseting will soon cure, I hope," said Rose, shrugging her pretty shoulders. "Where to, Miss Trecarrel?" asked the footman, touching his hat ere he sprang to his place behind. "To Bodmin," replied the elder sister: "we have shopping to do, Mr. Trevelyan;" and after a pause she added, "I have told you that they were odd people, those Devereaux; we were fools to come--don't you think so, Rose?" "Perhaps, Mab." "Do not judge so harshly," urged Audley. "What may be more probable than that both should feel excited after the last night's terror and--and----" "Chivalry," suggested Rose Trecarrel, a little malice glittering in her fine eyes; but Audley remained silent. Mabel and Rose Trecarrel were both eminently handsome girls. The elder was tall and showy, having dark grey eyes that filled, at times, with unusual lustre and had a wonderful variety of expression, but her chief beauties were perhaps her purity of complexion and the quantity and magnificence of her rich brown hair.