"It would require wings!" she said, faintly.
Lucan began at once to climb the path again, supporting and almost dragging Julia, who had nearly fainted.
He had at last the gratification of setting his foot upon a projection of the ground, a sort of narrow esplanade jutting from the rock. He succeeded in drawing Julia upon it. But she sank at once in his arms, and her head rested upon his chest. He could hear her arteries and her heart throbbing with frightful force. Then, gradually, her agitation subsided. She lifted her head gently, opened her long eyelashes, and looking at him with rapturous eyes:
"I am so happy!" she murmured; "I wish I could die so!"
Lucan pushed her off from him the length of his arm, then, suddenly seizing her again and clasping her tightly to his heart, he cast upon her a troubled glance, and then another upon the abyss. She certainly thought they were about to die. A slight tremor passed across her lips; she smiled; her head half rolled back:
"With you?" she said—"what happiness!"
At the same moment, the sound of voices was heard a short distance above them. Lucan recognized Clotilde's and the count's voices. His arm suddenly relaxed and dropped from Julia's waist. He pointed out to her, without speaking, but with an imperious gesture, the path that wound around the rock.
"Without you, then!" she said, in a gentle and proud tone. And she began ascending.
Two minutes later, they reached the plateau above the cliff, and related to Clotilde the perils of their ascension, which explained sufficiently their evident agitation. At least they thought so.
During the evening of this same day, Julia, Monsieur de Moras, and Clotilde were walking after dinner under the evergreens of the garden. Monsieur de Lucan, after keeping them company for a short time, had just retired, under pretense of writing some letters. He remained, however, but a few minutes in the library, where the sound of the others' voices reached his ears and disturbed his attention. A desire for absolute solitude, for meditation, perhaps also some whimsical and unaccountable feeling, led him to that very ladies' walk stamped for him with such an indelible recollection.