Chapter 3

FACE TO FACE.

When Eustace Le Neve returned to lunch at Penmorgan that day he was
silent to his host about Trevennack of Trevennack. To say the truth,
he was so much attracted by Miss Cleer's appearance that he didn't
feel inclined to mention having met her. But he wanted to meet her
again for all that, and hoped he would do so. Perhaps Tyrrel might
know the family, and ask them round to dine some night. At any rate,
society is rare at the Lizard. Sooner or later, he felt sure, he'd
knock up against the mysterious stranger somewhere. And that involved
the probability of knocking up against the mysterious stranger's
beautiful daughter.

Next morning after breakfast, however, he made a vigorous effort to
induce Walter Tyrrel to mount the cliff and look at the view from
Penmorgan Point toward the Rill and Kynance. It was absurd, he said
truly, for the proprietor of such an estate never to have seen the
most beautiful spot in it. But Tyrrel was obdurate. On the point of
actually mounting the cliff itself he wouldn't yield one jot or
tittle. Only, after much persuasion, he consented at last to cross the
headland by the fields at the back and come out at the tor above St.
Michael's Crag, provided always Eustace would promise he'd neither go
near the edge himself nor try to induce his friend to approach it.

Satisfied with this lame compromise--for he really wished his host to
enjoy that glorious view--Eustace Le Neve turned up the valley behind
the house, with Walter Tyrrel by his side, and after traversing
several fields, through gaps in the stone walls, led out his companion
at last to the tor on the headland.

As they approached it from behind, the engineer observed, not without
a faint thrill of pleasure, that Trevennack's stately figure stood
upright as before upon the wind-swept pile of fissured rocks, and that
Cleer sat reading under its shelter to leeward. But by her side this
morning sat also an elder lady, whom Eustace instinctively recognized
as her mother--a graceful, dignified lady, with silvery white hair and
black Cornish eyes, and features not untinged by the mellowing,
hallowing air of a great sorrow.

Le Neve raised his hat as they drew near, with a pleased smile of
welcome, and Trevennack and his daughter both bowed in return. "A
glorious morning!" the engineer said, drinking in to the full the
lovely golden haze that flooded and half-obscured the Land's End
district; and Trevennack assented gravely. "The crag stands up well in
this sunshine against the dark water behind," he said, waving one
gracious hand toward the island at his foot, and poising lighter than
ever.

"Oh, take care!" Walter Tyrrel cried, looking up at him, on