No wonder that the peasantry, steeped in superstition, believed that this was fitting place for lost and wandering souls.
How vividly they could picture dead faces peering from out of the dark clefts, dead mouths uttering their unceasing cries against the fate which had closed for ever the gates of Paradise, dead eyes staring into each other's depths in startled horror, or away over the grey waste of waters ever roaring hungrily for more victims.
Even Cécile shuddered, crossing herself as she stood on the sandy shore, listening to the eerie sobbing of wind and waves, and watched how dying moonbeams shed ghostly patches of light in dark, deserted corners.
But Morice's arm still encircled her, and there was no wavering or weakness in the blue eyes which looked down into hers.
She had cried to him for protection, and manhood, ready armed, had sprung to lusty life within him at the appeal.
"You will trust me, sweetheart?" he asked her, and his voice shook a little over the question in humble self-distrust.
Her smile destroyed all doubt.
What matter that she left home and country behind in the mists of night? Before her lay love and the dawn of a new day.
"With my life, Morice," she whispered, nestling close to his side with the confidence of a trustful child.
But Gabrielle stood nearer to the shore, the waves almost lapping her feet, whilst flaky fragments of spume fluttered against her cloak.