Winefred waited no longer. She ran up the lane leaving her father to follow at a pace more suited to his age and tight-lacing. She came to the gate――once set with thorns――with a number of people running also up the lane, and could see that there were a great many on the common, forming as it were a wavering black ribbon on the short turf. Some impelled by curiosity advanced considerably, but next moment alarmed at their own temerity, scared by some trifle, recoiled. One cried out that he heard a grinding sound under his boot-soles, and at once there was a rush inland. There broke out an argument as to where the fall would be. Some said along the line of the old Undercliff, there would be the cleavage. This was disputed on the ground that the Undercliff represented an earlier and exhausted subsidence. One point there was on the down higher than the rest, that commanded a general view, and this was a point to which the curious trended partly because it gave such an extensive prospect, but also because it was esteemed secure. Winefred inquired of the groups she encountered whether they had seen her mother, and received contradictory replies. She was taking the path that led to the cottage, when she was arrested by a loud and general cry that ran from west to east; and immediately she heard a strange rending sound as of thick cloth ripped asunder; this produced a rush backwards of the people, and shouts of command rang from some of the preventive men. At once was seen a jagged fissure running like a lightning-flash through the turf, followed by a gape, an upheaval, a lurch, then a sinkage, and a starring and splitting of the surface. In another moment a chasm yawned before their eyes, three-quarters of a mile long, torn across the path, athwart hedges, separating a vast tract of down and undercliff from the mainland, and descending into the bowels of the earth. Winefred was caught by the shoulder and hurled back. It was not safe to stand near the lip of this hideous rent, for that lip broke up and fell in masses into the abyss. Cracks started from it, or behind it, and widened, and whole blocks of rock and tracts of turf disappeared. The surface beyond the chasm presented the most appalling appearance. It was in wild movement, breaking up like an ice-pack in a thaw. It swayed, danced, fell apart into isolated blocks, some stood up as pillars, some bent as horns, others balanced themselves, then leaned forward, and finally toppled over and disappeared. In an agony of alarm for her mother, Winefred ran to the bit of isolated land whence the whole scene was visible, even the cottage, and she was followed by Mrs. Jose and Mr. Holwood, who had come up with her.