a
quarter to eight before
She knew she must stop there alone till morning . The Trevennacks dined in their lodgings at Gunwalloe at half-past seven . But in the rough open-air life of summer visitors on the Cornish coast , meals as a rule are very movable feasts ; and Michael Trevennack was n't particularly alarmed when he reached home that evening to find Cleer had n't returned before him . They had missed one another , somehow , among the tangled paths that led down the gully ; an easy enough thing to do between those big boulders and bramble-bushes ; and it was a quarter to eight before Trevennack began to feel alarmed at Cleer 's prolonged absence . By that time , however , he grew thoroughly frightened ; and , reproaching himself bitterly for having let his daughter stray out of his sight in the first place , he hurried back , with his wife , at the top of his speed along the cliff path to the Penmorgan headland . It 's half an hour 's walk from Gunwalloe to Michael 's Crag ; and by the time Trevennack reached the mouth of the gully the sands were almost covered ; so for the first time in fifteen years he was forced to take the path right under the cliff to the now comparatively distant island , round whose base a whole waste of angry sea surged sullenly . On the way they met a few workmen who , in answer to their inquiries , could give them no news , but who turned back to aid in the search for the missing young lady .