Gard hesitated one moment and Nance stretched a hand to him, and he took it and went steadily across.
And, oh, the thrill of that first living touch of her! The feel of the warm nervous little hand sent a tingling glow through him such as he had never in his life experienced before. Verily, a white-stone day this, in spite of winds and darkness!
The gale howled like ten thousand demons, and the noise of the waves in Grande Grève came up to them in a ceaseless savage roar. Gard confessed to himself that, alone, he would never have dared to face that perilous storm-swept bridge. But the small hand of a girl made all the difference and he stepped alongside her without a tremor.
"B'en, Monsieur Gard, was I right?" shouted Bernel in his ear, as they stepped within the shelter of the cutting on the farther side.
"You were right. It's a terrible place in a gale."
"You wait," shouted Bernel. "We're not home yet."
"No more Coupées, any way," and they bent again into the storm.
They had not gone more than a hundred yards when, through some freakish funnelling of the tumbled headlands, the gale gripped them like a giant playing with pigmies, caught them up, flung them bodily across the road and held Gard and Bernel pinned and panting against the green bank, while Nance disappeared over it into the shrieking darkness.
"Good heavens!" gasped Gard, fearful lest she should have been blown over the cliffs, and wriggled himself up under the ceaseless thrashing of the gale and was whirled off the top into the field beyond.
There the pressure was less, and, getting on to his hands and knees to crawl in search of Nance, he found her close beside him crouching in the lee of the grassy dyke.