"Geoffrey, hear me--I die for you; accept my sacrifice, and forget menot." So!--she is in the rollers--how solemn they are with their hoaryheads of foam, as one by one they move down upon her.

The first! it towers high, but the canoe rides it like a cork. Look!the day is dying on the distant land, but still his glory shinesacross the sea. Presently all will be finished. Here the breeze isstrong; it tears the bonnet from her head, it unwinds the coronet ofbraided locks, and her bright hair streams out behind her. Feel howthe spray stings, striking like a whip. No, not this wave, she ridesthat also; she will die as she has lived--fighting to the last; andonce more, never faltering, she sets her face towards the rollers andconsigns her soul to doom.

Ah! that struck her full. 0h, see! Geoffrey's ring has slipped fromher wet arm, falling into the bottom of the boat. Can she regain it?she would die with that ring upon her finger--it is her marriage-ring,wedding her through death to Geoffrey, upon the altar of the sea. Shestoops! oh, what a shock of water at her breast! What was it--what wasit?--/0f once sown seed, whom knoweth what the crop is?/ She must soonlearn now!

"Geoffrey! hear me, Geoffrey!--I die, I die for you! I will wait foryou at the foundations of the sea, on the topmost heights of heaven,in the lowest deeps of hell--wherever I am I will always wait foryou!"

It sinks--it has sunk--she is alone with God, and the cruel waters.The sun goes out! Look on that great yellow wave seething through thedeepening gloom; hear it rushing towards her, huge with fate.

"Geoffrey, my darling--I will wait----"

Farewell to Beatrice! The light went out of the sky and unlitnessgatheblack on the weltering sea. Farewell to Beatrice, and all her loveand all her sin.

CHAPTER XXIX