Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/74

 curl over at the tip and come surging down upon us. It's a horrible thing, really, a great height above you.'

'Nonsense, Dick.—There's nothing horrible about it.—Look at the cows under the poplars if you don't want to look at the cliff.'

But Graham said: 'One can't look at cows when the cliff is there.'

They rounded the promontory and found the bridge, a mere plank and handrail, laid across the inner stream. Then, when they had crossed the bridge, it was bare cliff-side they climbed, and then, as Madame Michon had told them, they crossed the grande route, breasted the steeper ascent, and soon found themselves among the vineyards. 'And here we are on the tip of your tidal wave,' said Jill, when, at the top, they paused to look around them. From here the island was lost to view. It was only grey sky, grey river, that they saw, and the rain-dimmed hillsides opposite.

'Yes. The very tip.—And what a dismal day!' said Graham. 'A sort of end of all things.'

'A beginning of all things;—it's full of the spring. Don't you smell and feel it? The vines are budding, and we might hear a chiff-chaff at any moment. I love this sort of day; it's so soft and kind. What an old pessimist you are, Dick.'

Graham put his arm through hers. 'That's why I married you.—Come on.—What I feel now is that we'll find the old lady lying dead in the Manoir.'

'No; she's kept alive, to see you again, as you told her she would do,' said Jill.