"I promise nothing," he said, "except that one way or the other I'm going to have you. You can take your choice. You can sink or swim. But you won't get away. There is a bond between us that you can't break, however hard you try. Fling yourself over if you think it's worth it? And before you get to the bottom I shall be with you. I'll chase you through the gates of Hades. I've travelled alone far enough. For the future—we go together. That I swear to God!"
Across the abyss he flung his tremendous challenge, the laugh still on his lips and in his eyes the blazing derision that mocks at fate.
And as she heard it, the girl's heart suddenly failed her. She began to tremble. Yet, even so, she made a last desperate bid for pride and freedom.
She clutched at the cold stones on each side of her with nerveless, quivering fingers. "There is—no bond between us!" she gasped forth piteously. "There never—never has been!"
He flung back the words like a missile, unerring, blindingly direct. "No bond between us! Good God! Would I follow you through death if there were not?" And then suddenly, with an amazing change to tenderness that leapt the void and enchained her where she stood:—"Toby—Toby, you little ass—don't you know I've loved you from the moment The Night Moth struck?"
There was no questioning the truth of those words. A great sob broke from Toby, and the tension went out of her attitude. She stood for a few seconds with her head raised, and on her face the unutterable rapture of one who sees a vision. Then, with sharp anguish, "I can't come back!" she cried like a frightened child. "I'm going to fall!"
Saltash straightened himself. His forehead was wet, but he did not pause for a moment. "I'm coming to you," he said. "Keep as you are and I'll give you a hand to hold!"
She obeyed him as one dazed into submission. Blindly she waited, till with a monkey-like agility, he also had traversed that giddy ledge to where she stood. His fingers met and gripped her own.
"Now," he said, "come with me and you are safe! You can't fall. My love is holding you up."
She heard the laugh in his voice, and her panic died. Mutely she yielded herself to him. By the strength of his will alone, she left the abyss behind. But when he lifted her from the parapet back to safety, she cried out as one whom fear catches by the throat, and fainted in his arms.