Part 36

“All men begin by promising that,” she answered, “and they end by abandonment and disgust. I have no reproach to cast on him to whom I shall be faithful. He made me no promises; I went to him; but my only means of lessening my fault is to make it eternal.”

“Say rather, madame, that you feel no love for me. I, who love you, I know that love cannot argue; it is itself; it sees nothing else. There is no sacrifice I will not make to you; command it, and I will do the impossible. He who despised his mistress for flinging her glove among the lions, and ordering him to bring it back to her, did not love! He denied your right to test our hearts, and to yield yourselves only to our utmost devotion. I will sacrifice to you my family, my name, my future.”

“But what an insult in that word ‘sacrifice’!” she said, in reproachful tones, which made poor Calyste feel the folly of his speech.

None but women who truly love, or inborn coquettes, know how to use a word as a point from which to make a spring.

“You are right,” said Calyste, letting fall a tear; “that word can only be said of the cruel struggles which you ask of me.”

“Hush!” said Beatrix, struck by an answer in which, for the first time, Calyste had really made her feel his love. “I have done wrong enough; tempt me no more.”

At this moment they had reached the base of the rock on which grew the plant of box. Calyste felt a thrill of delight as he helped the marquise to climb the steep ascent to the summit, which she wished to reach. To the poor lad it was a precious privilege to hold her up, to make her lean upon him, to feel her tremble; she had need of him. This unlooked-for pleasure turned his head; he saw nought else but Beatrix, and he clasped her round the waist.

“What!” she said, with an imposing air.

“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.”

“Will you return to Conti?”

“I must.”

“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.”

“And you?” said Camille.

The man seemed surprised that he should be considered in presence of the danger to his young master.

“You must go to Croisic and fetch a ladder,” said Camille.

Beatrix asked in a feeble voice to be laid down, and Calyste placed her on the narrow space between the bush and its background of rock.

“I saw you, Calyste,” said Camille from above. “Whether Beatrix lives or dies, remember that this must be an accident.”

“She will hate me,” he said, with moistened eyes.

“She will adore you,” replied Camille. “But this puts an end to our excursion. We must get her back to Les Touches. Had she been killed, Calyste, what would have become of you?”

“I should have followed her.”

“And your mother?” Then, after a pause, she added, feebly, “and me?”