Over the curling fern and wind-stirred grasses the silken milkweed
seeds sailed, sailed, and the great red-brown butterflies drifted
above, ruddy as autumn leaves aglow in the sun.
"On the sand-cliff there are marigolds," said Sweetheart.
I looked at the mass of wild flowers in her arms; her white polished
skin reflected the blaze of colour, warming like ivory under their
glow.
"Marigolds," I repeated; "we will get some."
"The sand slides on the face of the cliff; you must be careful," she
said.
"And I may see one of those rare cliff butterflies. I haven't any good
examples."
I fancy she was not listening; the crows were clamouring above the
beech woods; the hill winds filled our ears with a sound like the sound
of the sea on shoals. Her gray eyes, touched with the sky's deep blue
and the blue of the misty hills, looked out across the miles of woods
and fields, and saw a world; not a world old, scarred, rock-ribbed, and
salt with tears, but a new world, youthful, ripe, sunny, hazy with the
splendour of wonders hidden behind the horizon--a world jewelled with
gems, spanned by rose-mist rainbows--a world of sixteen years.
"We are already at the cliff's edge," I said.
She stepped to the edge and looked over. I drew her back. The sand
started among the rocks, running, running with a sound like silver
water.
"Then you shall not go either," she said. "I do not care for marigolds."
But I was already on the edge, stooping for a blossom. The next instant
I fell.
There was a whistle of sand, a flurry and a rush of wind, a blur of
rock, fern, dead grasses--a cry!
For I remember as I fell, falling I called, "Sweetheart!" and again
"Sweetheart!" Then my body struck the rocks below.