They guessed that she had heard all or nearly all; but the glory of the sunrise, shining full on her at that moment, lent a false warmth to her face, and life to eyes woefully and tragically set.

It was not easy to say whether she had heard or not.

"Take the letter," she repeated.
Carlat looked helplessly over the parapet.
"Go down!" He cast a glance at La Tribe, but he got none in return, and he was preparing to do her bidding when a cry of dismay broke from those who still had their eyes bent downwards.

The messenger, waving the letter in a last appeal, had held it too loosely; a light air, as treacherous, as unexpected, had snatched it from his hand, and bore it--even as the Countess, drawn by the cry, sprang to the parapet--fifty paces from him.
A moment it floated in the air, eddying, rising, falling; then, light as thistledown, it touched the water and began to sink.
The messenger uttered frantic lamentations, and stamped the causeway in his rage.

The Countess only looked, and looked, until the rippling crest of a baby wave broke over the tiny venture, and with its freight of tidings it sank from sight.
The man, silent now, stared a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, 'tis fortunate it was his," he cried brutally, "and not His Excellency's, or my back had suffered! And now," he added impatiently, "by your leave, what answer ?" What answer?
Ah, God, what answer?
The men who leant on the parapet, rude and coarse as they were, felt the tragedy of the question and the dilemma, guessed what they meant to her, and looked everywhere save at her.
What answer?
Which of the two was to live?
Which die--shamefully?
Which?
Which?
"Tell him--to come back--an hour before sunset," she muttered.
They told him and he went; and one by one the men began to go too, and stole from the roof, leaving her standing alone, her face to the shore, her hands resting on the parapet.