"Well, here I am, Marguerite; I hope you were not alarmed at the time I have taken, but I was on duty when I saw your signal, and it was some little time before I could get away."
"I was getting a little anxious, Charlie, but 'all is well' now that you have come."
"Ah, that is right! but how are you to-night, little woman--all the fancies fled?"
"Almost Charlie, but still not quite; you will think me very foolish, I know, but everything was so beautifully arranged for my seeing you easily to-night that I can't help thinking that some one else has been arranging too for some purpose of his own."
"Come, come, you little croaker, try and put such thoughts out of your pretty head, and remember I 'deserve the fair' after having been so 'brave' as to mount this rickety wheel, but I wish you would take this parcel from me; the bobbins are in it, which I have perilled my life to bring! I hope you see my devotion clearly, eh?"
"I do, indeed, Charlie, and now I shall work all the better and be more in earnest; I don't mean you to have all the work on your shoulders when we marry; I know I shall be able to get sale for my lace amongst the beautiful ladies you tell me of in England."
"Ah, Marguerite, that is just what I wanted to speak to you about; I suppose your Father still wishes you to marry that rascal Gaultier? By the way, I believe he or some one very like him was sneaking round the cliffs on Monday night. After I left you, I fancied I saw him; it might be _only_ fancy. Did you see anything of him?
Alas! poor Charlie! Will you speak again to finish that sentence and tell what you wish? For suddenly the mill wheel has turned round with a tremendous crash, and the brave young soldier has been hurled down! And Marguerite, what of her? With one agonized cry she rushed to the door intending to run outside to see if anything could be done for Charlie, when she came face to face with Jacques Gaultier! In an instant it all flashed on her that he must have wrought this terrible work, and, overcome by grief and horror, she sank down in a deadly faint. Bad man as he was, Jacques was really overcome at the consequences of his act, for he thought he had also killed Marguerite. He called loudly to her Father, who came up hurriedly. He was also seriously alarmed when his gaze rested on his child lying like one dead on the floor. Between them they carried her downstairs and laid her on her bed. They applied such restoratives as suggested themselves, but as everything was for sometime quite unavailing, a more miserable pair it would have been difficult to discover.