A Son of Perdition by Fergus Hume

Montrose was so accustomed to obey his Master that he never questioned the order to climb the cliff and leave Alice alone in the cave. Yet as he straightened himself behind the bush which masked the entrance he wondered why such instructions had been given. Neither he nor the girl knew that Enistor watched for their coming, so the young man could only conjecture that Eberstein wished him to surrender to those officers of the law who were hunting for him. This seemed strange in the face of the doctor's telegram advising him to fly; but for want of knowledge Montrose was not in a state of mind to reconcile the apparent contradiction. His sole idea was to do what he had been told to do, even though -- as seemed to be the case -- he was risking loss of liberty and life. And indeed, with regard to the last Montrose believed that he might lose it otherwise than on the gallows.

The narrow, tortuous path sloped upward abruptly, with the cliff soaring high above it and the cliff dropping steeply below to unfathomable depths. Fortunately the mighty wind, which roared inland from the sea, enabled him to cling the more surely to the rocky face of the precipice, and by slow degrees he crawled towards his goal overhead. In a less degree than Alice was the young man accustomed to such perilous wayfaring, and only by persistent will-power did he manage to control his nerves. What with the screaming of the tempest above and the bellowing of the waters below, he nearly lost his head. The tumult of sound, the stormy darkness only fitfully dispersed by gleams of moonlight, his dangerous position midway between heaven and earth -- these things were enough to daunt the bravest man. But that he had been supported by unseen powers, Montrose would never have succeeded in scaling that tremendous cliff.