The two on the cliff could hear the raised voices. With white, strained faces they listened, bewildered, almost afraid. "The boy is hers. It is true," whispered Bertie. "Look, he's out on the rock, and it's slippery, dangerous. He ought to keep down." A little figure was toiling along the sharply-cut edge. The tide was washing at the safe side where the rock merged into the sands, so Cyril kept high up. "It's not safe; he may fall. You want to kill him," Esmé cried, beginning to run towards the rock. It was safe at low tide, because the sands were bare, but no place for baby feet on the upper side above the deep water. "You would not have let Cecil go," Esmé stormed as she hurried on. "Oh, Cyril, stop! Keep near the tide." Perhaps her voice frightened the child as he picked his way. He started, slipped, and fell over. In a second a little white face could be seen on the calm, dark water. "Cyril, oh, Cyril! Oh, my baby!" rose a shrieking cry. With mad haste Esmé tore off her skirt and sprang into the sea, clutching at the sinking child. She caught him as he came up for the third time, and swam back holding him. But the black sides towered sheer and straight four feet above her; the seaweed gave as she caught it; the child was a dead weight on one arm, and she had hurt the other jumping in. "Get help," she cried. "Get help, Denise." Denise lay on the sands, shrieking, half-unconscious, useless and helpless. "They'll drown! Go for help, Estelle. I may get down to them in time." Bertie swung over the edge of the cliff, beginning a perilous climb. Another rescuer went hurrying too. "It's Cyrrie! My Cyrrie, dwownin'." Baby Cecil left his castle, began to patter out along the rock, sobbing as he ran. "Wait, Cyrrie, wait! I tumin' to help. Oh, my Cyrrie!" Half-way down Bertie knew that he ought to have run on to the path. Sometimes he hung and thought he could go no further, then dropped and scrambled, and caught some point which saved him. He was still too high up to jump when he came to a jutting ledge and could see no way on. There, Esmé, clinging, slipping, as she called for help, looked up and saw him. "Bertie!" she said. "You followed me." She stopped calling out, clutched a new piece of seaweed and grew strangely quiet. "Bertie, I'm not worth it," she said. "Don't risk anything." Voices are strangely clear across the water; hers rang plainly. "I'll come, Esmé. I must find a way. I'll save you." "I'm going to drown, Bertie. I'm so tired, it won't hurt much; but I've time to talk a little." As he raged up and down his ledge he heard her voice telling, as quietly as though they were in some room, safe and sheltered, her story. "Send for Luigi Frascatelle, he'll identify me as the boy's mother. Bertie, I sold my birthright, but I've been punished for it, so forgive me now, and keep my Cyrrie--he's alive." The pity of it as she clung there--young, pretty, once so happy. Truly, the punishment had been hard.