“Will you never be mine?” he demanded, in a voice that was choked by the tumult of his blood.
“Never, my friend,” she replied. “I can only be to you a Beatrix,--a dream. But is not that a sweet and tender thing? We shall have no bitterness, no grief, no repentance.”
“You shall never belong to any man!” cried Calyste, pushing her from him with frenzied violence.
He listened for her fall, intending to spring after her, but he heard only a muffled sound, the tearing of some stuff, and then the thud of a body falling on the ground. Instead of being flung head foremost down the precipice, Beatrix had only slipped some eight or ten feet into the cavity where the box-bush grew; but she might from there have rolled down into the sea if her gown had not caught upon a point of rock, and by tearing slowly lowered the weight of her body upon the bush.
Mademoiselle des Touches, who saw the scene, was unable in her horror to cry out, but she signed to Gasselin to come. Calyste was leaning forward with an expression of savage curiosity; he saw the position in which Beatrix lay, and he shuddered. Her lips moved,--she seemed to be praying; in fact, she thought she was about to die, for she felt the bush beginning to give way. With the agility which danger gives to youth, Calyste slid down to the ledge below the bush, where he was able to grasp the marquise and hold her, although at the risk of their both sliding down into the sea. As he held her, he saw that she had fainted; but in that aerial spot he could fancy her all his, and his first emotion was that of pleasure.
“Open your eyes,” he said, “and forgive me; we will die together.”
“Die?” she said, opening her eyes and unclosing her pallid lips.
Calyste welcomed that word with a kiss, and felt the marquise tremble under it convulsively, with passionate joy. At that instant Gasselin’s hob-nailed shoes sounded on the rock above them. The old Breton was followed by Camille, and together they sought for some means of saving the lovers.
“There’s but one way, mademoiselle,” said Gasselin. “I must slide down there, and they can climb on my shoulders, and you must pull them up.”
The man seemed surprised that he should be considered in presence of the danger to his young master.