At last she got to the end of the stones, and then, oh joy! there lay before her a beautiful smooth stretch of ripple-marked sand—­how delightful it was to run along it, so firm and pleasant it felt to her tired little feet.  The lighthouse seemed still a good way off—­farther than she had expected, but at first, in the relief of having got off the stones, she almost felt as if she could fly.  She did get over the ground pretty quickly for some minutes, and even when she began to go more slowly she kept up a pretty good pace.  And at last she saw the queer building—­it reminded her a little of an old pigeon-house at grandmamma’s, for it was not a very high lighthouse—­almost close to her.  But, Celestina had spoken truly, between it and her there lay a good-sized piece of water, stretching up to the rocks, or great rough stones round the base of the lighthouse—­a sort of lake which evidently was always there, filled up afresh by each visit of the tide.

Bridget gasped.  But she was determined enough once she had made up her mind.  She went close up to the water; it did not look at all deep and her skirts were very short.  Down she sat on the sand, less dry than it looked, and pulled off her shoes and stockings, tying them up into a bundle as she had seen tramps do in the country.  Then lifting her frock as high as she could, in she plunged. Oh, how cold it was!  But the water did not come up very high, not over her knees, though now and then a false step wetted her pretty badly.  She was shivering all over, but on she waded, till within a few yards only of the sort of little shore surrounding the lighthouse, when—­what was the matter with the sand, what made it seem to go away from her all at once?  She plunged about, but on all sides it seemed to be sloping downwards; higher and higher rose the water, till it was above her waist, and still every movement made it rise.

‘I’m drowning,’ screamed Biddy.  ’Oh, help me, help me!  Man in the lighthouse, can’t you hear me?  Oh, oh, oh!’

Biddy fortunately had good lungs and her screams carried well.  But the water kept rising, or rather she kept slipping farther down.  She was losing her head now, and had not the sense to stand still, and she was partly stupefied by cold.  It would have gone badly with her but for—­what I must now tell you about.

It was what would be called, I suppose, a curious coincidence, the sort of chance, so to say—­though ‘chance’ is a word without real meaning—­that many people think only happens in story-books, in which I do not at all agree, for I have known in real life far stranger coincidences than I ever read of—­well, it was by a very fortunate coincidence that that very afternoon Bridget’s father happened to be at the lighthouse.  He had gone out there by a sudden thought of Mr. Mildmay’s, the Portscale clergyman I told you of, who had mentioned in talking that he had not been there for some time.

‘And it is a very fine mild day,’ he said.  ’It doesn’t take twenty minutes in a boat.  If you don’t think it would hurt you, Mr. Vane?’