Emily went off with her mother to pay her last visit among the family, and to make her preparations; and it was deemed proper that at this time Pinckney should not be with her.  So he stayed in Newport five long days alone; and during this time he never spoke to Miss Warfield.  I believe he tried not to look at her:  she did not look at him.  And on the fifth night Pinckney swore that he must speak to her once more, whatever happened.

In the morning there was talk of a sailing party; and Pinckney noted Breeze busying himself about the arrangements.  He waited; and at noon Breeze came to him and said that there was a scarcity of men:  would he go?  Yes.  They had two sail-boats, and meant to land upon Conanicut, which was then a barren island without a house, upon the southern end, where it stretches out to sea.

Pinckney did not go in the same boat with Breeze and Miss Warfield; and, landing, he spent the afternoon with others and saw nothing of her.  But after dinner was over, he spoke to her, inviting her to walk; and she came, silently.  A strange evening promenade that was:  they took a path close on the sheer brink of the cliffs, so narrow that one must go behind the other.  Pinckney had thought at first she might be frightened, with the rough path, and the steepness of the rocks, and the breakers churning at their base; but he saw that she was walking erect and fearlessly.  Finally she motioned him to let her go ahead; and she led the way, choosing indiscriminately the straightest path, whether on the verge of the sea or leading through green meadows.  A few colorless remarks were made by him, and then he saw the folly of it, and they walked in silence.  After nearly an hour, she stopped.

“We must be getting back,” she said.

“Yes,” said he, in the same tone; and they turned; she still leading the way, while he followed silently.  They were walking toward the sunset; the sun was going down in a bank of dense gray cloud, but its long, level rays came over to them, across a silent sea.  She walked on over the rugged cliff, like some siren, some genius of the place, with a sure, proud grace of step; she never looked around, and his eyes were fixed upon the black line of her figure, as it went before him, toward the gray and blood-red sunset.  It seemed to him this was the last hour of his life; and even as he thought his ankle turned, and he stumbled and fell, walking unwittingly into one of the chasms, where the line of the cliff turned in.  He grasped a knuckle of rock, and held his fall, just on the brink of a ledge above the sea.  Miss Warfield had turned quickly and seen it all; and she leaned down over the brink, with one hand around the rock and the other extended to help him, the ledge on which he lay being some six feet below.  Pinckney grasped her hand and kissed it.

Her color did not change at this; but, with a strange strength in her beautiful lithe figure, she drew him up steadily, he helping partly with the other hand, until his knees rested on the path again.  He stood up with some difficulty, as his ankle was badly wrenched.