I was admiring her lightness and thoughtlessness, but with an uneasy feeling, when I saw her suddenly stop.

I instinctively ran toward her.

An enormous crevasse of great depth lay at her feet, blue at its edges and dark in its depths.

She stood motionless before this frightful gulf with hands thrown out before her in horror, but charmed like a bird about to be swallowed by a serpent.

I knew the irresistible effect upon nervous temperaments of this magnetic attraction toward an abyss.