ed 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.

Calyste, sitting on a stool, answered only by motions of the head, and
rare monosyllables when spoken to; Camille's uneasiness, roused for
Beatrix, was still further excited by Calyste's unnatural condition.
When the physician arrived, and Beatrix was bled, she felt better, began
to talk, and consented to embark; so that by five o'clock they reached
the jetty at Guerande, whence she was carried to Les Touches. The
news of the accident had already spread through that lonely and almost
uninhabited region with incredible rapidity.