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The lower ground had fallen like a dead jaw; had slipped none so great a distance down the slope leading to the under-cliff, and lay a billowing mass subsided upon itself. De Jussac would stand not an instant. "We must climb down somehow, anyhow!" he cried feverishly. "We must search all along what was once the bottom of the cleft." "It is a risk, sir. Why not wait till the morning?"
The demon of restlessness soon drove him back to the house again, and he learned that there would be a train in about two hours. They would still have time to dine at the Kaaterskill and return before night. He therefore made arrangements to be driven to the station, also to have the horse he had ridden and the saddles taken back to the Under-Cliff House.
Just at the end of this flat ledge, farthest from where the bridle-path leads down, but not a hundred yards from where we stand, there is a sheep-track leading up the cliff. It starts where the under-cliff dies back again into the chalk face, and climbs by slants and elbow-turns up to the top.
We have fifteen minutes yet to win or lose with, and if we gain the cliff-top in that time we shall have an hour's start, or more, for they will take all that to search the under-cliff. And Maskew, too, will keep them in check a little, while they try to bring the life back to so good a man. But if we fall, why, we shall fall together, and outwit their cunning.
Then we heard the voices again, but farther off, and not so loud; and knew that our pursuers had left the under-cliff and turned down on to the beach, thinking that we were hiding by the sea. Five minutes later Elzevir stepped on to the cliff-top, with me upon his back. 'We have made something of this throw, he said, 'and are safe for another hour, though I thought thy giddy head had ruined us.
"Mr. Arnault," said Miss Wildmere, quietly, "we have decided to spend some time at the Under-Cliff House in the Catskills. So you perceive that I shall be deprived of the pleasure of your calls for a while." "Not at all. I shall take part of my summering there also. When do you go?" "In a few days sometime before the fourth. How fortunately it all happens!" she added, laughing.
Wildmere had decided upon the Under-Cliff House also, and that they would depart on Saturday. "Then you will be compagnon de voyage," said Graydon, with undisguised pleasure. Somewhat to Mrs. Wildmere's surprise, her husband quietly acquiesced in his daughter's wishes, telegraphed for rooms, and desired his wife to be ready.
"Have you lost something, Jacques?" she called out to her husband, who was stooping over the shingle. "Yes, the key," he said. "It slipped out of my hand." She went down to him and began to look also. For two or three minutes, as they sheered off to the right and remained close to the bottom of the under-cliff, they were invisible to Hortense and Renine.
Muir, but that gentleman had little trouble in guessing when he saw his brother greet the Wildmeres as if he understood their plans, and laughingly promise Mr. Wildmere that he would see the ladies and their belongings safely established in the Under-Cliff House. Graydon observed the slight cloud on his brother's face, but ignored it, feeling that his preference was an affair of his own.
Why did you not marry a German princess or some reduced English countess?" "I was not driven to that necessity, since there were American queens at home. I am delighted that you are still in town. What are your plans for the summer?" "We have not fully decided as yet." "Then go to the Catskills. Our ladies are there at the Under-Cliff House, and I am told that it is a charming place."
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