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.
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