"You did love me. I know that. It was her money. You did love me—you do. It is only to frighten me. Let me down, let me down. Do you know I am on the very edge? It is dangerous fun—cruel fun!"
"Fun!" sneered the fiend, wrenching her arms away and drawing back to give more deadly force to the action. "Fun, is it?"
He was pushing backward, his white face was close to hers, his hoarse curse hissed in her ear. With a terrible effort to save herself, she wound her arms around his neck, dragging him down to the rickety railing, over which he was straining all his powers to hurl her.
"Oh, Dick! Dick! Don't kill me! Do—"
Another crash. The railing gave way. He strove madly to free his neck from her clinging arms, but they clasped him like iron. The struggle was terrible. Under it the whole balcony began to quiver and break. Their two faces were close together, their eyes burning with hate and fear, met. One desperate effort the man put forth to free himself; but the grip on his neck grew closer, and choked him. With the might of despair he dragged her half-way up from the reeling timbers; but her weight baffled his strength, and brought him down with an awful thud. Down, down, they plunged, through the rotten timbers, into the black depths of the lake.
After this the stillness was appalling. Over the place where those two had gone down, linked together in that death-clasp, bits of broken wood floated, drearily, like reptiles driven from their holes; and from their midst a human head appeared, lifted itself from the water, and went down again. Twice after this the head rose, each time nearer the shore. Then two gleaming hands seized upon the strong rushes, forsook them for a rooted vine, and Judith Hart lifted herself to the bank; where she fell helpless, with the ends of her long hair streaming into the water, and mingling with the grasses that swayed to and fro on their dark disturbance.
In this position the girl lay exhausted for some minutes, then she struggled to her feet, swept the dank hair back from her face, and, stooping forward, searched the waters with her clouded eyes.
She saw nothing. If any object, living or dead, was on that inky surface the darkness concealed it. Then her hands were flung out and her voice struggled into cries:
"Richard! Richard! Here! here! The water is shallow here. Oh, my God! Light a little light that I may see where he is!"
There was no answer—only a faint lapse of water against the bank.