After the landlord’s first shock of excitement and surprise was over, he was quite prepared to recognise the form of Diggory Fargus in this unexpected vision. But one keen look at it, as it struggled and stumbled through the fierce wind, showed it to be too tall for that stunted mariner. The landlord heaved a sigh of vast relief. It was not until the man, for man it clearly was, had come directly behind the absorbed woman, and plucked her by the cloak, that she withdrew her eyes from the sea and confronted him. And her manner of doing so was so wild and startled, that she could have had no cognisance of his presence. A cry escaped her lips; a cry so great that it pierced through the gale to the landlord’s ears; and it appeared to the watcher’s astonished eyes that had the man not supported her in his arms, she might have fallen headforemost down the cliff. And then a little moment afterwards occurred a thing more singular. The woman sank on her knees on the rock before this strange appearance; and, taking his outstretched hand within her own, she bent her face convulsively against it, so that it seemed to him who watched that her eyes, her lips, her hair, her tears were imbrued upon it in a strange mad passion, the like of which he had never seen before. She might have been a minute or an hour thus, the act was so vivid, so unforgettable, so pregnant with that which sears the memory and leaves it raw. But at last the man seemed to draw her to her feet, and thereafter they stood together, talking eagerly. There was that in the frantic gestures of the woman, in her wrought attitude, and the perfervid manner of her utterance, that the landlord was able to interpret. It seemed to him that she was pouring forth a wild appeal. But listen as tensely as he might, the noise of the sea and the wind, and the intervening distance, were too great for him to catch a word that fell between them. The next thing of which the landlord was aware, was, that they were leaving the altitude on which they stood. As they prepared to descend to the path beneath, the woman hung heavily upon the strange man’s arm. And as they came down the incline of the rocks, they approached so near to Gamaliel’s hiding-place that the old man was able to train his eyes full upon them; and the moonlight and the light of the woman’s lantern falling on them too, they became a feast for his curiosity. He was able to discern almost every detail of the stranger’s countenance; and as he did so, he had to strangle the cry of surprise that welled up on his lips. The woman’s mysterious companion was none other than the landlord’s new serving-man, Will Jackson. [Illustration: CHAPTER VII _The Woman_]