The avenger was close behind.
“Don’t be so foolish, Susan!” Markworth said, in a half-angry, half-coaxing manner. “I’m not going to leave you now, child. I’m talking about to-morrow. I’ve been away before, and I can’t be with you always.”
And he tried to unclasp her hands from his neck.
“Oh, Allynne! I can’t go back there! I shall die! Take my money, everything I’ve got; but do let me stay with you—don’t send me back there!” she sobbed out in broken accents.
The allusion to the money, and her entreaties seemed to madden him.
“Have done, girl! Idiot!” he said, roughly, tearing away her hands with violence, and throwing her from him.
The poor girl started back as pale as death, as if she had been shot.
“Idiot! idiot!” she cried out, in tones that seemed to come from the depths of a broken heart. “Oh, Allynne! That word from you! from you!” she moaned, and wrung her hands in bitterness of spirit.
As she started back—the pathway was very narrow—she stood on the very verge of the rocky precipice which bordered the road.
And as she uttered the last words, her foot slipped. With a scream of genuine terror, re-echoed by Markworth, she fell back, and he could hear the heavy fall of a body below.