Not till evening was setting in was it possible for any to cross the gulf and reach the subsided portion. The chasm itself was some three hundred and sixty feet across, and into this all the tract between the lips had gone down at various inclinations. Beyond that to the sea something like four hundred and forty yards had slipped away in an incline, much dislocated, but with an abrupt face forming one side of the great chasm.

It was of imperious necessity to get to the cottage that could be seen, not ruined, still standing, but leaning to one side, that search might be made for Jane Marley.

It was only made possible by the efforts of Jack Rattenbury, assisted by some of the Bindon labourers placed at his disposal by Mrs. Jose. By his direction a pathway was cut down the face of the chalk precipice on the land side at a point where the ravine was choked with accumulations that had fallen in, and by means of planks and ropes the chasm was passed and the farther side ascended, and then Winefred, followed by her father and Mrs. Jose, was enabled, with the assistance of Jack, and walking with wariness, to arrive at the cottage.

It was locked, but when Winefred called, she heard a muffled voice reply from within.

The front door was too stout to be easily broken open, but that at the back yielded and the rescue party entered.

They found Mrs. Marley on the floor. She was in a sitting posture, her hands still bound behind her, her hair dishevelled, but the blood from the wound in her head was staunched. She had succeeded, by some means, in freeing her mouth from the gags. Her eyes were dull. The colour had died from her face, the fire from her heart. She breathed, looked dazedly before her, and seemed listless when her daughter, Mr. Holwood, and the rest entered.

Winefred pulled back what of the curtain remained obscuring the chamber. Through the back door that faced west a stronger light entered and penetrated to the room where Jane crouched. Jack Rattenbury had at once cut the bands that confined her hands, and although the woman was able to bring her arms forward, they were stiff, and her hands frightfully swollen.

Mrs. Jose had run for water, but the spring that had supplied the cottage was dried up. There remained, however, a little in a vessel in the back kitchen, and with this Jane's face was bathed as Winefred rested her mother's head on her bosom. The cuts in her head were not serious. The girl hasted to tie up the draggled hair.

The men who had assisted to make a path had been relegated to the outside. It was probable, if Jane Marley were unable to walk, that they would be required to carry her. Mr. Holwood remained looking at her intently, his weak lower lip fallen. She did not notice him. Her eyes were for her daughter only, who bowed over her, kissed her repeatedly, and whose tears dripped upon her face.

'Are you better now, mother darling? Do you think you could rise?'

Winefred supporting her on one side, Jack on the other, the woman staggered to her feet, and at once recovered self-possession. She raised her head, looked at the wrists and swollen fingers and passed her hands over her eyes.

'It has been a dream, a nightmare,' she said. And then asked, 'Where is Olver Dench?'

'O mother, do not ask.'

'But I desire to know. He has robbed me.'

'He is gone to his account.'

Jane was silent for a while.

Presently she said, 'He carried off everything in a carpet-bag.'

'That,' said Winefred, 'will never be recovered. It has gone down along with him.'

'Gone down!' repeated Mrs. Marley, with trouble in her eyes.

'Yes, mother, ask no further. It shall be explained later. If Olver Dench has wronged you—and that he did so I know—God has judged him. Whatsoever of yours he had in that bag is lost, never to be recovered.'

Jane turned her eyes slowly to Jack and said, 'It was your father's savings, hundreds of pounds of gold. I had kept it. I did wrong. I am punished.'

'Mother, are you better?' asked Winefred. 'Can you see who is before you?'

'Yes, you are here.'

'Not I alone. Here is father.'

Jane looked at Mr. Holwood. Perhaps she was too shaken, too exhausted to manifest the resentment that had possessed her. She looked at him steadily, without hate, but also without affection in her eyes.

'Jane, my wife,' said he in a faltering voice, 'I also have done wrong, and like you I acknowledge it openly. But not all the wrong you suppose. I have sent every quarter a liberal share of money to you through Dench, which he retained for himself, and I—I have often had an ache of heart and yearning after you, but have been prevented from coming to see you by the reports of what you were and what you did—slanderous and wicked reports—sent me by that infamous man. I believed him.'

'Then you never knew me,' said Jane slowly, 'or you would not, you could not have believed him.'

'I never knew your worth, Jane,' said he, 'because I had not that worth in me which could appreciate how noble and how good you were. Can you forgive me?'

'I do not know,' she said slowly—dreamily. 'It is a long story. Nineteen years of desolation and heart-break; nineteen years is a long time, and in that chain each day is a link, and each link is full of pain.'

'Jane,' said Mr. Holwood, 'here is your ring, that you threw on the floor in the Assembly Rooms at Bath. Will you not take it again?'

'I do not know.' She looked at her hand. 'My fingers are so swelled.'

'Jane,' he went on—and Winefred, holding her mother, looked earnestly into her face, so changed from what it had been.

'Jane,' pursued Mr. Holwood, 'I have come here as a suppliant. I am smitten with an incurable disease—perhaps the most terrible and painful that can afflict man. How rapidly it will act I cannot say—but in a year at the outside all will be over. In a little while I shall not be able to speak, for it will begin from my tongue—the tongue you cursed. Jane, Jane! May I not die in your arms?'

Then a shudder ran through the woman; she shook herself free from Winefred, stretched her purple hands towards him, and in thrilling tones said: 'O Jos! my own Jos! Come to my heart once more.'

Thereat Mrs. Jose took Winefred by the arm and drew her into the back kitchen; thither Jack had already withdrawn, and then the good woman wiped her eyes and kissed Winefred—thrust her towards Jack, and said: 'You, boy—kiss her too.'

Next moment Jane called them.

'I want you here,' she said. Once more her voice had acquired some of its firmness and imperiousness. And they saw her—she was herself again, nay other—younger, with a tender look in her face and love in her eyes.

'I want you here,' she said. 'I desire you to hear me ask for pardon of Jack Rattenbury. I have done you a great wrong, Jack, for which I can make no amends. Can you forgive me?'

'No, no,' answered the young man. 'You have done me no wrong. Whatever it was that my father saved could not have been better expended than in the purchase of this house, and in the education of Winefred. Give her to me as the balance.'

'You must ask him,' said Jane, indicating Mr. Holwood.

'If Winefred has her mother's strong will, as I do not doubt she has, Jane, you and I can but accept her selection.'

'In a year,' said Jack, 'I shall be in a position to support a wife.'

'About that do not concern yourself,' said Mr. Holwood. 'I am well off, and all I have shall be hers.'

'Nevertheless, I will work,' said Jack. 'If at some future time I get something with her, I daresay Captain Ford will take me into partnership, and we can set up machinery and make of the Beer quarries something great.'

'I had a cow, once on a time——' began Mrs. Jose.

'Never mind about the cow now, you dear thing,' interrupted Winefred. 'We positively must get back to the mainland whilst there is light, and at Bindon we will hear the cow story from beginning to end, and will not interrupt.'

'But the cow had a calf——'

'And we will listen also to the history of the calf.'

'Well, well,' said Mrs. Jose. 'You and Winefred go on, and Mr. Holwood and I will follow with your mother. What a day this has been for rending asunder—and for joining together.'

THE END