They walked on together. Bessie knew not what to say. It was not possible to disturb Urith's conviction that her husband was dead, and that she was his destroyer. They continued to walk, but now again in silence. Urith again relapsed into her brooding mood, went forward, threaded her own way among the bunches of prickly gorse, now out of flower, and the scattered stones, regardless of Bessie, who was put to great inconvenience to keep at her side. She was forced to disengage her hand, as it was not possible for her to keep pace with her sister-in-law in such broken ground. Urith did not observe that Bessie had released her, nor that she was still accompanying her. She took a direct course to Tavy Cleave, that rugged, natural fortress of granite which towers above the river that plunges in a gorge, rather than a valley, below. On reaching this she cast herself down on the overhanging slab, whereon she had stood with Anthony, when he clasped her in his arms and swung her, laughing and shouting, over the abyss. Bessie drew to her side. She was uneasy what Urith might do, in her disturbed frame of mind; but no thought of self-destruction seemed to have crossed Urith's brain. She swung her feet over the gulf, and put her hands through her hair, combing it out into the wind, and letting that waft and whirl it about, as it blew up the Cleave and rose against the granite crags, as a wave that bowls against a rocky coast leaps up and curls over it. Bessie allowed her to do as she liked. It was clearly a refreshment and relaxation to her heated and overstrained mind thus to sit and play with the wind. Rooks were about, at one moment flashing white in the sun, then showing the blackness of their glossy feathers. Their nesting and rearing labours were over: they had deserted their usual haunts among trees, to disport themselves on the waste lands. The roar of the river came up on the wind from below--now loud as the surf on reefs at sea, then soft and soothing as a murmur of marketers returning from fairing, heard from far away. Something--Bessie knew not what--induced her to turn her head aside, when, with a start of alarm, she saw, standing on a platform of rock, not a stone's throw distance, the tall full form of Julian. Her face was turned towards her and Urith. She had been watching them. The sun was on her handsome, richly-coloured face, with its lustrous eyes and ripe pouting lips. Bessie's first impulse was to hold up her hand in caution. She did not know what the effect produced on Urith might be of seeing suddenly before her the rival who had blighted her happiness; and the position occupied by Urith was dangerous, on the overhanging ledge. Bessie rose from her place and walked towards Julian, stepping cautiously among the crags. Urith took no notice of her departure. On reaching Julian Crymes, Bessie caught her by the arm and drew her back among the rocks, out of sight and hearing of Urith.