I
felt sure it was a call from the grave, and I knelt on the sands and
prayed. Henry, Henry, don't go in the church to-night.'
That Winifred's words affected me profoundly I need not say. The
shriek, whatever it was, had been responded to by her soul and by
mine in the same mysterious way. But the important thing to do was to
prevent her from imagining that her superstitious terrors had
affected me.
'Really, Winnie,' I said, 'this double-voiced shriek of yours, which
is at once the shriek of the Welshman at the bottom of the swollen
falls and the Celtic call from the grave, is the most dramatic shriek
I ever heard of. It would make its fortune on the stage. But with all
its power of being the shriek of two different people at once, it
must not prevent my going into the church to do my duty; so we had
better part here at this very spot. You go up the cliffs by Needle
Point, and _I_ will take Flinty Point gangway.'
'But why not ascend the cliffs together?' said Winifred.
'Why, the prying coastguard might be passing, and might wonder to
see us in the churchyard on the night of my father's funeral (he
might take us for two ghosts in love, you know).
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