was impossible, and in the darkness they could reach nothing
but the sharp ledge of the cliff sheer above the raging river.
Entrapped and bewildered, Vic felt cautiously about; but the only
certain things were the straight bluff overhanging the flood,
and the cavernous way leading downward; while the same deluge
that was keeping Vincent Burgess storm-staid on the veranda
of the Saxon House, was beating mercilessly down on Elinor Wream.

"We can't stay here and be threshed to pieces," Vic cried.
"This crack is drier, anyhow, and it must lead to somewhere."

It did lead to what seemed to Elinor an endless length of
hideous uncertainty, until Vic suddenly lost his footing and
plunged headlong down somewhere into the blackness of darkness.
Elinor shrieked in terror and sank down limply on the stone
floor of the crevice.

"All a bluff," Vic called up cheerily, in the same startlingly deep sweet
voice that had caught Elinor's ear on the September afternoon before the door
of Sunrise, and out in the edge of her consciousness the thought played
in again, "I'd rather be here with you than over the river with anybody else.
I feel safer here."

"Slide down, Elinor. I'll catch you. It is n't very far,
and there's a little light somewhere."

Elinor slipped blindly down the side of the rock into
Vic Burleigh's outstretched arms. As he set her on her feet,
somehow, the little light failed. In all their struggle,
this part of the way seemed the darkest, the chillest,