Mademoiselle des Touches, who saw the scene, was unable in her horror to cry out, but she signed to Gasselin to come.  Calyste was leaning forward with an expression of savage curiosity; he saw the position in which Beatrix lay, and he shuddered.  Her lips moved,—­she seemed to be praying; in fact, she thought she was about to die, for she felt the bush beginning to give way.  With the agility which danger gives to youth, Calyste slid down to the ledge below the bush, where he was able to grasp the marquise and hold her, although at the risk of their both sliding down into the sea.  As he held her, he saw that she had fainted; but in that aerial spot he could fancy her all his, and his first emotion was that of pleasure.

“Open your eyes,” he said, “and forgive me; we will die together.”

“Die?” she said, opening her eyes and unclosing her pallid lips.

Calyste welcomed that word with a kiss, and felt the marquise tremble under it convulsively, with passionate joy.  At that instant Gasselin’s hob-nailed shoes sounded on the rock above them.  The old Breton was followed by Camille, and together they sought for some means of saving the lovers.

“There’s but one way, mademoiselle,” said Gasselin.  “I must slide down there, and they can climb on my shoulders, and you must pull them up.”

“And you?” said Camille.

The man seemed surprised that he should be considered in presence of the danger to his young master.

“You must go to Croisic and fetch a ladder,” said Camille.

Beatrix asked in a feeble voice to be laid down, and Calyste placed her on the narrow space between the bush and its background of rock.

“I saw you, Calyste,” said Camille from above.  “Whether Beatrix lives or dies, remember that this must be an accident.”

“She will hate me,” he said, with moistened eyes.

“She will adore you,” replied Camille.  “But this puts an end to our excursion.  We must get her back to Les Touches.  Had she been killed, Calyste, what would have become of you?”

“I should have followed her.”

“And your mother?” Then, after a pause, she added, feebly, “and me?”

Calyste was deadly pale; he stood with his back against the granite motionless and silent.  Gasselin soon returned from one of the little farms scattered through the neighborhood, bearing a ladder which he had borrowed.  By this time Beatrix had recovered a little strength.  The ladder being placed, she was able, by the help of Gasselin, who lowered Camille’s red shawl till he could grasp it, to reach the round top of the rock, where the Breton took her in his arms and carried her to the shore as though she were an infant.

“I should not have said no to death—­but suffering!” she murmured to Felicite, in a feeble voice.

The weakness, in fact the complete prostration, of the marquise obliged Camille to have her taken to the farmhouse from which the ladder had been borrowed.  Calyste, Gasselin, and Camille took off what clothes they could spare and laid them on the ladder, making a sort of litter on which they carried Beatrix.  The farmers gave her a bed.  Gasselin then went to the place where the carriage was awaiting them, and, taking one of the horses, rode to Croisic to obtain a doctor, telling the boatman to row to the landing-place that was nearest to the farmhouse.