She did, poor thing. With all her confiding
heart, she praised him to me, for his care of her
dead sister, and for his untiring devotion in her
last illness. The sister had wasted away very
slowly, and wild and terrible fantasies had come
over her towards the end; but he had never been
impatient with her, or at a loss; had always
been gentle, watchful, and self-possessed. The
sister had known him, and she knew him, to be
the best of men, the kindest of men, and yet a
man of such admirable strength of character, as
to be a very tower for the support of their weak
natures while their poor lives endured.

"I shall leave him, Mr. Sampson, very soon,"
said the young lady; "I know my life is drawing
to an end; and when I am gone, I hope he
will marry and be happy. I am sure he has
lived single so long, only for my sake, and for
my poor poor sister's."

The little hand-carriage had made another
great loop on the damp sand, and was coming
back again, gradually spinning out a slim figure
of eight, half a mile long.

"Young lady," said I, looking around, laying
my hand upon her arm, and speaking in a
low voice; "time presses. You hear the gentle
murmur of that sea?"

She looked at me with the utmost wonder
and alarm, saying, "Yes!"

"And you know what a voice is in it when
the storm comes?"

"Yes!"'

"You see how quiet and peaceful it lies
before us, and you know what an awful sight
of power without pity it might be, this very
night?"

"Yes!"

"But if you had never heard or seen it, or
heard of it, in its cruelty, could you believe
that, it beats every inanimate thing in its way
to pieces, without mercy, and destroys life without
remorse?"

"You terrify me, sir, by these questions!"

"To save you, young lady, to save you!
For God's sake, collect your strength and
collect your firmness! If you were here alone,
and hemmed in by the rising tide on the flow
to fifty feet above your head, you could not be
in greater danger than the danger you are now
to be saved from."

The figure on the sand was spun out, and
straggled otf into a crooked little jerk that
ended at the cliff very near us.

"As I am, before Heaven and the Judge of
all mankind, your friend, and your dead sister's
friend, I solemnly entreat you, Miss Niner,
without one moment's loss of time, to come to
this gentleman with me!"

If the little carriage had been less near to us,
I doubt if I could have got her away; but, it
was so near, that we were there, before she had
recovered the hurry of being urged from the
rock. I did not remain there with her, two
minutes. Certainly within five, I had the
inexpressible satisfaction of seeing her—from the
point we had sat on, and to which I had
returned—half supported and half carried up
some rude steps notched in the cliff, by the
figure of an active man. With that figure
beside her, I knew she was safe anywhere.

I sat alone on the rock, awaiting Mr. Slinkton's
return. The twilight was deepening and
the shadows were heavy, when he came round
the point, with his hat hanging at his buttonhole,
smoothing his wet hair with one of his
hands, and picking out the old path with the
other and a pocket-comb.

"My niece not here, Mr. Sampson?" he said,
looking about.

"Miss Niner seemed to feel a chill in the air
after the sun was down, and has gone home."

He looked surprised, as though she were not
accustomed to do anything without him: even
to originate so .slight a proceeding. "I
persuaded Miss Niner," I explained.

"Ah!" said he. " She is easily persuaded—
for her good. Thank you, Mr. Sampson; she
is better within doors. The bathing-place was
further than I thought, to say the truth."

"Miss Niner is very delicate," I observed.

He shook his head and drew a deep sigh.
"Very, very, very. You may recollect my saying
so? The time that has since intervened, has
not strengthened her. The gloomy shadow that
fell upon her sister so early in life, seems, in my
anxious eyes, to gather over her too, ever darker,
ever darker. Dear Margaret, dear Margaret!
But we must hope."

The hand-carriage was spinning away before
us, at a most indecorous pace for an invalid
vehicle, and was making most irregular curves
upon the sand. Mr. Slinkton, noticing it after
he had put his handkerchief to his eyes, said:

"If I may judge from appearances, your
friend will be upset, Mr. Sampson."

"It looks probable, certainly," said I.

"The servant must be drunk."

"The servants of old gentlemen will get drunk
sometimes," said I.

"The major draws very light, Mr. Sampson."

"The major does draw light," said I.

By this time, the carriage, much to my relief,
was lost in the darkness. We walked on for a
little, side by side over the sand, in silence.
After a short while he said, in a voice still
affected by the emotion that his niece's state of
health had awakened in him:

"Do you stay here long, Mr. Sampson?"

"Why, no. I am going away to-night."

"So soon? But, business always holds you
in request. Men like Mr. Sampson are too
important to others, to be spared to their own need
of relaxation and enjoyment."

"I don't know about that," said I.
"However, I am going back."

"To London?"

"To London."

"I shall be there too, soon after you."

I knew that, as well as he did. But, I did
not tell him so. Any more than I told him what
defensive weapon my right hand rested on in my
pocket, as I walked by his side. Any more than
I told him why I did not walk on the sea-side
of him, with the night closing in.