The narrow beach between the tawny headlands is black with people. Up
above, on the edge of the cliff, another crowd peers curiously down.
The Senechal is there at the water's edge, Philip Guille of La Ville,
and the Greffier, William Robert, who is also the schoolmaster, and
Thomas Le Masurier the Prevot, and Elie Guille the Constable, and Dr.
Stradling from Dixcart, and the dark-faced, fierce-eyed woman who cannot
keep still, but ranges to and fro in the lip of the tide, and whom they
all know now as the wife--the Frenchwoman, though some of them have
never seen her before.
A buzz runs round as the boat comes slowly past the point of the Laches.
The woman stops her caged-beast walk and stands gazing fiercely at it,
as if she would tear its secret out of it before it touched the shore.
The watchers on the cliff have the advantage. Something like a thrill
runs through them, something between a sigh and a groan breaks from
them.
The woman wades out to meet the boat. She sees and screams, and chokes.
The wives on the beach groan in sympathy.
The body is lifted carefully out and laid on the cool grey stones, and
the woman stands looking at it as a tiger may look at her slaughtered
mate.
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