After a time the slope got easier and she stopped, lifting her hand.  Festing found her looking into a ravine through which water flowed.  It was not very deep, but its sides were perpendicular.  Seeing that Miss Jardine was some distance behind, she looked at Festing with a quiet smile.

“There is a place where one can cross without much trouble, but I don’t know whether to go up or down.”

Festing felt his heart beat.  It looked as if she had taken him into her confidence and asked his help.

“Not down, I think.  That would take us to the big ghyll.  Let’s try up, and cross at the first practicable spot.”

Helen made a sign of agreement, and when Miss Jardine joined them they turned back along the edge of the ravine.  By and by Helen stopped where patches of wet soil checkered the steep rock and a mountain-ash offered a hold.  Almost immediately below the spot, the stream plunged over a ledge and vanished into the mist.

Festing looked at Helen.  The descent would be awkward, if not dangerous, but he could trust her judgment.  It was the first time he had allowed a woman to give him a lead in a difficulty, and he admitted that he would not have done so had his guide been anybody else.

“I think we can get across, and I don’t want to go too far up,” she said.  “If you don’t mind helping Alison—­”

“I’ll throw the sacks across first,” Festing replied.

He swung them round by the straps and let them go, and when the last splashed into a boggy patch on the other side Miss Jardine laughed.

“I’m selfishly glad that one is yours.  If Helen’s had fallen a foot short, it would have gone over the fall, but I expect she had a reason for taking the risk.  Where our clothes have gone we must follow.”

Helen seized a tuft of heather, and sliding down, reached a narrow shelf four or five feet below.  Then a small mountain-ash gave her a fresh hold and she dropped to the top of a projecting stone.  Below this there was another shelf and some boggy grass, after which a bank of earth dropped nearly straight to the stream.

“How we shall get down the last pitch isn’t very obvious,” Miss Jardine remarked.  “I suppose we will see when we arrive.  It isn’t my resolution that gives way, but my foot.  You might go first.”

Festing dropped on to the first shelf, and she came down into his arms.  The shock nearly flung him off, but he steadied her with an effort and seized the stem of the small tree.

“Looks like a tight-wire trick,” he said, glancing at the stone.  “However, if we miss it, there’s another ledge below.”

He reached the stone, and balancing on it with one foot, kicked a hole in the spongy turf.  Finding this would support him he held out his hand.

“Now.  As lightly as you can!”

The girl came down, struck the stone with her foot, and slipped, but Festing had time to clutch her first.  He could not hold her back, but he could steady her, and for a moment felt his muscles crack and the peat tear out from the hole in the bank.  Then his hands slipped and he fell, gasping and red in face, upon the shelf beside the girl.