"So these are the thanks I get?" said Vincenz between his teeth. "Did not thou bid me do it?"
"And if I did--what then? Was that a reason?" cried Wally wildly, "often one says in anger what afterwards one rues in bitterness. Could thou not wait till I had come to myself again after the awful shock? Joseph, Joseph!--wild and wicked I may be, but no murderess. Oh, why could thou not wait, only a few hours? Thy own wickedness it was that drove thee on, and thou could never rest till thou had worked it out."
"That's right, lay it all on me," growled Vincenz; "and yet thou's thy share in the mischief too."
"Aye," said Wally, "I have--and with thee I'll atone for it. For us two no mercy remains. Blood cries for blood--" She ground her teeth, and seizing Vincenz by the collar, dragged him forward with her.
"Wally, leave go of me!--what dost thou want? My God, are these the thanks I get? Mercy--Wally, thou'rt choking me--where art thou dragging me to?"
"To where we two belong," was the gloomy answer, and on she went as though borne by a whirlwind, up the ascent, on to the bridge where the sheer precipice overhangs the torrent--where the deed was done. "Down," was the one fearful word she thundered in his ear, "we two--together."
"God above us!" shrieked Vincenz in terror, "thou swore that if I did the deed thou'd be my wife, and now wilt thou murder me?"
Wally laughed her fearful laugh of scorn. "Thou fool, when I fling myself down yonder with thee, shall not we two be together to all eternity? will thou try to save thy wolfish life?" And with the strength of a giant she grasped him in her arms, and hurried him forward to the low parapet that she might throw herself with him into the twilight gloom of the abyss.
"Help!" shrieked Vincenz involuntarily, and--
"Help!" sounded feebly, ghostly, like an echo from the depths.