CHAPTER XIV
After the awful disappointment Claude and Marguerite experienced when they saw the vessel of their hopes sink out of sight, they could only turn to each other for silent comfort. Unconscious of whither they went, their feet led them to the top of the high cliff from which Marie had fallen. Trembling on the dizzy verge, each seemed to read what was in the other's mind. A leap, sudden darkness, and all would end. The next world—what of that? Could there be another world as cruel as this?
"Come away!" they exclaimed together, clutching each other's hands. "Come away! Not yet!" And in these words each knew that the other realised that death—the death which for a moment they had courted—was all they could hope for. The ship which had passed was but a chance vessel; the fishermen never came so far north. Their provisions were beginning to run low; and the rigorous climate which had killed poor old Bastienne must in time sap their young strength. Claude was feeling its influence the more keenly. His wounds had left him less robust than of old, and the harsh treatment he had received at De Roberval's hands had helped to shatter his iron constitution. His cheek, once ruddy with health, had grown thin and pale; his limbs were shrunken, and his hands, once so strong and sinewy, had become cold and nerveless. When Marguerite rested hers in them, she could not but feel that for him death was not very far off; but she dared not speak. She saw he did not realise it, and his eye was ever filled with pity for her suffering.
With her it was otherwise. Her will bore her nobly up. Instead of losing strength, she grew more robust. Her step became as light and wiry as that of the fleet-footed fox which stole silently about the island. Her arms, which had never exerted themselves beyond bending a bow in sport, could now wield the axe as skilfully as Claude's. She had lost none of her beauty, but in her rough garb, browned by the sun and wind and sea, she seemed, in Claude's eyes, queenlier than ever. On this night, as she leaned upon Claude's arm, each felt that the strength to endure must come from her, though neither allowed the thought to form itself into words.
When they reached their hut, the terrible loneliness, the blank left by the death of their devoted old companion, so weighed upon them that they once more sought the beach, where the long waves rolled in and broke at their feet, keeping time, in their melancholy rush and retreat, with the ever-recurring wave of sorrow in their young hearts.
"Marguerite," Claude said, pressing her tenderly to him, "this is more than I can bear. You do not blame me, but I know that I am to blame. I knew your uncle, and I should never have allowed myself to bring you to this."
"Hush, dear, you are mad to speak so! Neither of us is to blame. No one could have foretold the lengths to which my uncle's stubborn will would carry him. But, my own, even at this time, each of us can say that we have known happiness. I would have had it otherwise; but had I to live my life over again, I could not have acted but as I did."
"Dear, I know it. But I cannot forget that Bastienne and Marie owe their deaths to me."
"You are gloomy to-night, love! Neither died with a complaining word on her lips. It was not you, nor my uncle, who cut them off, but fate. Dearest, the night wind cuts you keenly," she added, as Claude gave way to a sudden fit of coughing. "Let us return to the house."