His heart sinking with a vague dread of fresh misfortune, Claude went to the edge of the cliff, and looked over. He saw at once what had happened. The stones at the top were loose and freshly disturbed, and the low shrubs which fringed the rock were crushed and broken. Hastily drawing Marguerite back, and bidding her return at once to the hut and warn Bastienne to get restoratives and blankets in readiness, he hurried round to the base of the cliff. The tide was rapidly rising, and the distance was considerable. With all his haste he was only just in time. As he rounded the projecting spur that formed one side of the bay, the water, which had at first covered only one of Marie's arms, reached her hair, and in a few minutes more must have risen over her face. De Pontbriand drew the bruised and senseless form higher up the rocks, and eagerly felt her heart. There was a faint, slow beating that told him a feeble life still fluttered there. Raising her in his arms he bore her with all possible speed to the hut, where every means that their resources and skill could suggest to restore her to consciousness was tried, and, as it seemed, in vain. At last, as the short October afternoon faded out in a purple haze, and the sad, grey evening closed about them, Marie opened her eyes. She was quite conscious, and seemed to suffer no pain. But the end was evidently close at hand. She spoke but little, and lay very quietly, with Marguerite's hand in hers. Just before it grew too dark for them to see her, she beckoned to Claude to approach, and as he stood beside her couch, she laid Marguerite's hand in his, smiled peacefully as she felt the strong grasp close above it, and, closing her eyes, with head turned a little aside, she passed away so tranquilly that they could not have told when her last breath was drawn.
When they realised that she was indeed dead, their grief had no words. Old Bastienne, at the foot of the couch, recited the prayers for the dead in a voice choked with sobs, and with the tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks; but Marguerite knelt in silence, dry-eyed, beside the body of her friend, gazing into the quiet, calm face. At last Claude raised her, and, tenderly wrapping a cloak round her, led her from the hut, and down to the beach. They stood in silence, trembling in each other's arms, their hearts too full for speech or tears, while the chill October wind whistled in from the sea, and the gulls and curlews flew screaming about their heads.