“How will this do?” he said. “The winner to have a month to make the running in, the loser not to interfere. If she won’t have anything to say to him after a month, then the loser to have his fling. If she will, loser to keep clear.” “That will do. Stand clear; up you go.” The shilling spun in the air. “Tails!” howled Jeremy. It lit on the beak of the astonished bittern and bounded off on to the floor, finally rolling under a box full of choice specimens of the petrified bones of antediluvian animals that had been washed out of the cliffs. The box was lugged out of the way with difficulty, and the shilling disclosed. “Heads it is!” said Ernest exultingly. “I expected as much; just my luck. Well, shake hands, Ernest. We won’t quarrel about the girl, please God.” They shook hands heartily enough and parted; but from that time for many a long day there was an invisible something between them that had not been there before. Strong indeed must be the friendship of which the bonds do not slacken when the shadow of a woman’s love falls upon it. That afternoon Dorothy said that she wanted to go into Kesterwick to make some purchases, and Ernest offered to accompany her. They walked in silence as far as Titheburgh Abbey; indeed, they both suffered from a curious constraint that seemed effectually to check their usual brother-and-sister-like relations. Ernest was just beginning to feel the silence awkward when Dorothy stopped. “What was that?” she said. “I thought I heard somebody cry out.” They listened, and presently both heard a woman’s voice calling for help. The sound seemed to come from the cliff on their left. They stepped to the edge and looked over. As may be remembered, some twenty feet from the top of the cliff, and fifty or more from the bottom, there was at this spot a sandy ledge, on which were deposited many of the remains washed out of the churchyard by the sea. Now, this particular spot was almost inaccessible without ladders, because, although it was easy enough to get down to its level, the cliff bulged out on either side of it, and gave for the space of some yards little or no hold for the hands or feet of the climber. The first thing that caught Ernest’s eyes when he looked over was a lady’s foot and ankle, which appeared to be resting on a tiny piece of rock that projected from the surface of the cliff; the next was the imploring face of Eva Ceswick, who was sprawling in a most undignified position on the bulge of sandstone, with nothing more between her and eternity than that very unsatisfactory and insufficient knob of rock. It was evident that she could move neither one way or the other without being precipitated to the bottom of the cliff, to which she was apparently clinging by suction like a fly. “Great God!” exclaimed Ernest. “Hold on, I will come to you.” “I _can’t_ hold much longer.”