Lizzy soon ascended a small mound, which Stockdale at the same time adroitly skirted on the left; and a dull monotonous roar burst upon his ear.  The hillock was about fifty yards from the top of the cliffs, and by day it apparently commanded a full view of the bay.  There was light enough in the sky to show her disguised figure against it when she reached the top, where she paused, and afterwards sat down.  Stockdale, not wishing on any account to alarm her at this moment, yet desirous of being near her, sank upon his hands and knees, crept a little higher up, and there stayed still.

The wind was chilly, the ground damp, and his position one in which he did not care to remain long.  However, before he had decided to leave it, the young man heard voices behind him.  What they signified he did not know; but, fearing that Lizzy was in danger, he was about to run forward and warn her that she might be seen, when she crept to the shelter of a little bush which maintained a precarious existence in that exposed spot; and her form was absorbed in its dark and stunted outline as if she had become part of it.  She had evidently heard the men as well as he.  They passed near him, talking in loud and careless tones, which could be heard above the uninterrupted washings of the sea, and which suggested that they were not engaged in any business at their own risk.  This proved to be the fact:  some of their words floated across to him, and caused him to forget at once the coldness of his situation.

‘What’s the vessel?’

‘A lugger, about fifty tons.’

‘From Cherbourg, I suppose?’

’Yes, ‘a b’lieve.’

‘But it don’t all belong to Owlett?’

’O no.  He’s only got a share.  There’s another or two in it—­a farmer and such like, but the names I don’t know.’

The voices died away, and the heads and shoulders of the men diminished towards the cliff, and dropped out of sight.

‘My darling has been tempted to buy a share by that unbeliever Owlett,’ groaned the minister, his honest affection for Lizzy having quickened to its intensest point during these moments of risk to her person and name.  ‘That’s why she’s here,’ he said to himself.  ’O, it will be the ruin of her!’

His perturbation was interrupted by the sudden bursting out of a bright and increasing light from the spot where Lizzy was in hiding.  A few seconds later, and before it had reached the height of a blaze, he heard her rush past him down the hollow like a stone from a sling, in the direction of home.  The light now flared high and wide, and showed its position clearly.  She had kindled a bough of furze and stuck it into the bush under which she had been crouching; the wind fanned the flame, which crackled fiercely, and threatened to consume the bush as well as the bough.  Stockdale paused just long enough to notice thus much, and then followed rapidly the route taken by the young woman.  His intention was to overtake