And in that shriek her consciousness went. She fell forward as a log upon the pebbles, and passed out of knowledge whether his young arms and accurate eye had saved him, or whether he had missed and had fallen headlong, or whether, again, he had succeeded in catching, clinging for a moment, but had been unable to maintain himself swaying as a pendulum in mid-air.
CHAPTER XLII
A REVELATION
The lapse into unconsciousness was but momentary—it was like the shock produced by a crash of thunder attended with a blinding blaze of the electric fluid—that stuns for an instant.
Winefred recovered rapidly, and staggered to her feet.
'He is safe,' said Jane Marley.
The girl waved her mother back, and started for the path that conducted to the summit.
But she had not mounted half way before her powers failed her. The strain on her nerves had been too great, the horror of being responsible for the life or death of the young man had so shaken her that limbs and breath failed, and she sank on a bank of red earth near where a spring oozed forth and trickled to the beach.
Then she covered her face with her hands and panted. The drops ran off her brow, the tears from her eyes. What if he had missed the swaying pole and had fallen, and been now lying at the bottom a mass of broken bone! Would not the guilt of having driven him to his death lie on her? The coroner's jury might not find her guilty, but her own conscience would condemn her. She had asked him to go after the choughs, had taunted him till he could do no other than keep his promise; when he had provided companions and rope, he could not retreat, even when she begged him at the last moment to desist. And now, like a dash of poisonous exhalation, rose the thought that he had been robbed by her mother. In the supreme moment of alarm, the mother had let slip the truth.