This gigantic sentinel resembles the look-out towers of old castles, from which the inhabitants could look the country over and foresee attacks.  Thence we see the clock towers and the arid fields of Croisic, with the sandy dunes, which injure cultivation, and stretch as far as Batz.  A few old men declare that in days long past a fortress occupied the spot.  The sardine-fishers have given the rock, which can be seen far out at sea, a name; but it is useless to write it here, its Breton consonants being as difficult to pronounce as to remember.

Calyste led Beatrix to this point, whence the view is magnificent, and where the natural sculpture of the granite is even more imposing to the spectator than the mass of the huge breastwork when seen from the sandy road which skirts the shore.

Is it necessary to explain why Camille had rushed away alone?  Like some wounded wild animal, she longed for solitude, and went on and on, threading her way among the fissures and caves and little peaks of nature’s fortress.  Not to be hampered in climbing by women’s clothing, she wore trousers with frilled edges, a short blouse, a peaked cap, and, by way of staff, she carried a riding-whip, for Camille has always had a certain vanity in her strength and her agility.  Thus arrayed, she looked far handsomer than Beatrix.  She wore also a little shawl of crimson China crape, crossed on her bosom and tied behind, as they dress a child.  For some time Beatrix and Calyste saw her flitting before them over the peaks and chasms like a ghost or vision; she was trying to still her inward sufferings by confronting some imaginary peril.

She was the first to reach the rock in which the box-bush grew.  There she sat down in the shade of a granite projection, and was lost in thought.  What could a woman like herself do with old age, having already drunk the cup of fame which all great talents, too eager to sip slowly the stupid pleasures of vanity, quaff at a single draught?  She has since admitted that it was here—­at this moment, and on this spot—­that one of those singular reflections suggested by a mere nothing, by one of those chance accidents that seem nonsense to common minds, but which, to noble souls, do sometimes open vast depths of thought, decided her to take the extraordinary step by which she was to part forever from social life.

She drew from her pocket a little box, in which she had put, in case of thirst, some strawberry lozenges; she now ate several; and as she did so, the thought crossed her mind that the strawberries, which existed no longer, lived nevertheless in their qualities.  Was it not so with ourselves?  The ocean before her was an image of the infinite.  No great spirit can face the infinite, admitting the immortality of the soul, without the conviction of a future of holiness.  The thought filled her mind.  How petty then seemed the part that she was playing! there was no real greatness in giving Beatrix to Calyste!  So thinking, she