without its risks.

Bernel bent and ran on through the darkness without a thought of danger.

Gard hesitated one moment and Nance stretched a hand to him, and he took
it and went steadily across.

And, oh, the thrill of that first living touch of her! The feel of the
warm nervous little hand sent a tingling glow through him such as he had
never in his life experienced before. Verily, a white-stone day this, in
spite of winds and darkness!

The gale howled like ten thousand demons, and the noise of the waves in
Grande Grève came up to them in a ceaseless savage roar. Gard confessed
to himself that, alone, he would never have dared to face that perilous
storm-swept bridge. But the small hand of a girl made all the difference
and he stepped alongside her without a tremor.

"B'en, Monsieur Gard, was I right?" shouted Bernel in his ear, as they
stepped within the shelter of the cutting on the farther side.

"You were right. It's a terrible place in a gale."

"You wait," shouted Bernel. "We're not home yet."

"No more Coupées, any way," and they bent again into the storm.

They had not gone more than a hundred yards when, through some freakish
funnelling of the tumbled headlands, the gale gripped them like a giant
playing with pigmies, caught them up, flung them bodily across the road