There was a pause, broken by the nearing thunder and the crash of the waves against the cliffs.
"Don't let's worry about that yet, dear, as everything is settled splendidly and----"
But Leonie pulled away and stood facing him with her hands in his against his heart.
The whisper was almost lost in the tumult of the breakers beneath.
"What would you _forgive_ me through love?"
"_Forgive_ you! Everything! Dishonour could not touch you, and everything else I should forgive!"
Leonie tried to speak as she looked past him to the little green track between the downs which led to the world, and all it contained for her; and he, obtuse male, content in the plans he had mapped out entirely to his own satisfaction, and having blissfully taken the girl's consent to the programme for granted, failed to read the agony written across her face in capital letters.
"Tell me that you will be content, dear. I'm rich enough, but nothing compared with--oh! tell me, what do you like--what do you want--what do you _really_ care for!"
She freed her hands and turned to look out to sea, where the day had been born in agony upon a bed of sullen, unbroken water.
Then she looked straight down at the waves flinging themselves against the cliffs, drenching her with spray, moaning, fretting at the barrier, retiring only to do the same thing over and over again.
"What do I want, O Man whom I love? I want a white house within high, white walls, on the edge of the sea. I want my arms full of children--yours and mine. I want love, oh! love and yet more love, that is what I want!"
The man twisted her round and held her at arms' length, her heels within an inch of the edge, her body bent back over the chasm, and her hair, spreading like a banner in the tearing wind, swept about his shoulders and across his face, intoxicating him with its perfume and silken caress.
Passion swept over him, he shook her like a reed, and her foot slipped off the earth into nothingness.
But not a word said she, though she prayed that he might suddenly let go his hold and send her crashing to sweet death on the rocks beneath.
You see what happens when you are decent and honest and have a mind to keep your word--just death rather than dishonour, and pain to others.