Philip Cleeve stood and gazed over the parapet into the black-flowing stream below. How many unhappy men might not have flung off life's bitter burden at that very spot! How easy the process! A leap, a plunge, a minute's brief struggle, and then the deep, deep sleep that knows no waking. Could it be really wrong to throw away that which was no longer of any value, that which had become a burden and for which he no longer cared? The question kept coming back to him with a sort of dreadful fascination. He could hear the faint lapping of the tide against the piers; and, the longer he gazed down at the water, the more it seemed to whisper to him of peace and rest, and a quiet ending to all his troubles. Why not quit a world in which there no longer seemed a place for him? Why not? Suddenly there arose a sound behind him, as of the quick patter of feet. Before Philip had time to interfere, before he well knew what had happened, a female figure, scantily clad, and with hair flying to the winds, had sprung on one of the stone seats, and thence on to the parapet. For one brief instant she stood thus, dimly outlined against the starlit sky; then, with hands clasped above her head, and a low, wild cry, she sprang headlong to her death. A little crowd gathered, as if by magic, where there had seemed to be scarcely anyone a minute before. Faint at heart, dizzy with the sudden horror of the thing, Philip Cleeve fell back from the rest. What were his little troubles compared with those which must have driven that poor desperate creature to destruction? The black, sullen river had suddenly become hateful to him, and he made haste to leave it far behind. CHAPTER VI. COUNSEL TAKEN WITH MR. MEATH. Anxious revelations were those which Ella Winter had to pour into the ears of her lover! For he was by her side now, not to leave her for long together again. The cloud, which during the last few months had been lowering over her life, was lightened at last; the burdens which had been growing too heavy for her to bear, were lifted now upon shoulders stronger and more able to sustain them. Suspense and distress lay around her still; but, compared with what had been, she walked in sunshine, gladness in her eyes and in her heart, and Love's sweet whispers in her ears. Edward Conroy took up his quarters at the hotel in Nullington, whence he walked over frequently to Heron Dyke. Mrs. Toynbee, back at the Hall now, was not slow to perceive the state of affairs. She wrote to her friend and patroness, Lady Dimsdale, that she was afraid she should have to look out for another home before long: for, unless she was much mistaken, Miss Winter was about to marry. The gentleman, she was good enough to say, was a very pleasant, nice-mannered person, named Conroy; but it seemed to her a great pity that Miss Winter had not chosen someone more nearly her equal in the social scale.