Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/301

 "No, no, for pity's sake!" she shrieked, her thin voice hardly rising above the roar of the coming tide. "Frank, call for help, he will murder me!"

"Yes—call, monsieur, call loud. There is none to hear. No one can help her now This is the time for which I prayed in the cold, silent dungeon at Clairvaux—for which I prayed as I toiled, and it has come—come at last. Lucille, dearest wife—ah, how beautiful you are—will you embrace me once again? Thus, with the knife between us, the hilt to my breast, the point to thine? Shall we clasp each other in our arms once more, or shall I wait and see the waves slowly rise, and rise, and rise till they sweep above your head?"

She uttered no sound now for the moment, but kept her eyes fixed upon him, while Onslow strove vainly to call for help—to go to the woman's aid, but every nerve seemed chained, and he could only gaze down as the man glided round the rock which parted him from his wife, holding the knife-hilt against his breast.

Then, heard above the roar of the waves, Lucille's voice rang out inarticulately as she still clung there, her back to the rock, her arms out-stretched. It was the cry of the rat driven to the corner from which there is no escape, and in his agony Onslow lay there, watching the dénouement of the tragedy, perfectly helpless to save.