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.

Calyste passed the night at Les Touches, sitting at the foot of
Beatrix's bed, in company with Camille. The doctor from Guerande had
assured them that on the following day a little stiffness would be all
that remained of the accident. Across the despair of Calyste's heart
there came a gleam of joy. He was there, at her feet; he could watch
her sleeping or waking; he might study her pallid face and all its