"Then good-bye!" She shook the hair back from her face, slipped her bare feet into sandals, slung the towel across her shoulders, and turned her face to the cliffs.
They frowned above the rock-strewn beach to a height of two hundred feet, tunnelled here and there by the sea, scored here and there by springs, rising mass upon mass, in some places almost perpendicular, in others overhanging.
They possessed an immense fascination for Chris Wyndham, these cliffs.
There was a species of dreadful romance about them that attracted even while it awed her.

She longed to explore them, and yet deep in the most private recesses of her soul she was half-afraid.

So many terrible stories were told of this particular corner of the rocky coast.

So many ships were wrecked, so many lives were lost, so many hopes were quenched forever between the cliffs and the sea.
But these facts did not prevent her weaving romances about those wonderful caves.

For instance, there was the Magic Cave, for which she was bound now, the entrance to which was only accessible at low tide.
There was something particularly imposing about this entrance, something palatial, that stirred the girl's quick fancy.