"Where is this house? Lead me to it."

"You can hardly get to it except on foot; rough walking, sir, and about
seven miles off by the shortest cut."

"Come, and at once; come quickly. We must be there before--before--"

"Before the young lady can get to the place. Well, from what you say of
the spot in which she was last seen, I think, on reflection, we may easily
do that. I am at your service, sir. But I should warn you that the
owners of the house, man and wife, are both of villanous character,--would
do anything for money. Mr. Margrave, no doubt, has money enough; and if
the young lady chooses to go away with Mr. Margrave, you know I have no
power to help it."

"Leave all that to me; all I ask of you is to show me the house."

We were soon out of the town; the night had closed in; it was very dark,
in spite of a few stars; the path was rugged and precipitous, sometimes
skirting the very brink of perilous cliffs, sometimes delving down to the
seashore--there stopped by rock or wave--and painfully rewinding up the
ascent.

"It is an ugly path, sir, but it saves four miles; and anyhow the road is
a bad one."

We came, at last, to a few wretched fishermen's huts. The moon had now
risen, and revealed the squalor of poverty-stricken ruinous hovels; a
couple of boats moored to the shore, a moaning, fretful sea; and at a