"Up Giant's Castle way" was quite a familiar direction to any one ascending the "coombe," or following the precipitous and narrow path which wound along the edge of the cliffs to certain pastures where shepherds as well as sheep were in daily danger of landslips, and which to the ordinary pedestrian were signalled by a warning board as "Dangerous." But "Giant's Castle" itself was merely the larger and loftier of the two towering rocks which guarded the sea-front of Weircombe village.

A tortuous grassy path led up to its very pinnacle, and from here, there was an unbroken descent as straight and smooth as a well-built wall, of several hundred feet sheer down into the sea, which at this point swirled round the rocky base in dark, deep, blackish-green eddies, sprinkled with trailing sprays of brown and crimson weed.

It was a wonderful sight to look down upon this heaving mass of water, if it could be done without the head swimming and the eyes growing blind with the light of the sky striking sharp against the restless heaving of the waves, and Mary was one of the few who could stand fearlessly on almost the very brink of the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," and watch the sweep of the gulls as they flew under and above her, uttering their brief plaintive cries of gladness or anger as the wild wind bore them to and fro.

When Reay first saw her run eagerly to the very edge, and stand there, a light, bold, beautiful figure, with the wind fluttering her garments and blowing loose a long rippling tress of her amber-brown hair, he could not refrain from an involuntary cry of terror, and an equally involuntary rush to her side with his arms outstretched.

But as she turned her sweet face and grave blue eyes upon him there was something in the gentle dignity and purity of her look that held him back, abashed, and curiously afraid.