"Not far; there, you see the light over there. Old Reynolds is sitting up for me and keeping the kettle going. He sticks by me through thick and thin. I have tried to make him take a better place, but he will not go." Dacre was silent, and they walked on, descending from the cliffs and following a path across the wide lawn-like fields, darkened by enormous heaps of shadow from scattered chestnut trees. An hour before the young men crossed these fields another figure, a woman's, had travelled the same path. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, and though she had lingered and loitered on the cliff-walk, she hurried on the lower ground till she arrived near Geoffrey's lodge. The speed with which she had walked proved that the woman was young, and when the strong wind tightened the light cloak on the outline of her tall figure, it could be seen, even in the moonlight, that she was lissome and beautiful. She had, on leaving the cliff path, steered straight for the light in Geoffrey's house; but when she approached it she walked slowly, and at last stopped in the deep shade of a tree within fifty feet of the lodge. From this position she could look into Geoffrey's sitting-room, where a fire burned brightly and a light stood in the window facing the cliff. "I shall wait here," she said, speaking to herself, as if to give herself courage by the whisper; "no one has seen me--no one but he shall ever know." But the next moment she almost screamed with terror at a sound behind her. A bramble cracked, and she saw a man within a few yards of her. She was terribly frightened, and could not speak or move. It was old Reynolds, Geoffrey's servant, who had seen her on the cliff walk, and had taken a night glass, with which his master often watched the ships, to see if this were not he returning from the house. Seeing a woman, Reynolds was surprised, for the cliff walk was lonely and not too safe. He was still more surprised to see her turn into the path to the lodge, and he had not lost sight of her for a moment till she stopped under the tree. When she turned, even in her terror, she assumed a defiant attitude, and she held it still, facing the man. Reynolds instinctively knew she was a lady, and with a touch of his hat, but a doubting sternness in his voice, he said: "Who are you, please, and what do you want here at this hour of the night--or morning?" She was reassured, knowing the voice to be that of a common man, and as quickly judging him to be Geoffrey's servant. "I am an old friend of Lord Brompton's family," she said, steadily enough; "and as I return to London to-morrow, I have walked here to-night just to see where the head of a grand old line is forced to reside." Reynolds was touched on his tender spot. The sternness left his voice, and with bare head he said sadly: "Ay, ma'am, in truth it is a sad sight to see the Lord of Ripon living in the cottage that was once the home of his groom--for my father kept the gate here for forty years."