y (and how unsuspectingly!)--until
nine--which is late for us--then went upstairs, Jean's friendly German
dog following. At my door Jean said, "I can't kiss you good night,
father: I have a cold, and you could catch it." I bent and kissed her
hand. She was moved--I saw it in her eyes--and she impulsively kissed my
hand in return. Then with the usual gay "Sleep well, dear!" from both,
we parted.

At half past seven this morning I woke, and heard voices outside my
door. I said to myself, "Jean is starting on her usual horseback flight
to the station for the mail." Then Katy (1) entered, stood quaking and
gasping at my bedside a moment, then found her tongue:

"MISS JEAN IS DEAD!"

Possibly I know now what the soldier feels when a bullet crashes through
his heart.

In her bathroom there she lay, the fair young creature, stretched upon
the floor and covered with a sheet. And looking so placid, so natural,
and as if asleep. We knew what had happened. She was an epileptic: she
had been seized with a convulsion and heart failure in her bath. The
doctor had to come several miles. His efforts, like our previous ones,
failed to bring her back to life.

It is noon, now. How lovable she looks, how sweet and how tranquil! It
is a noble face, and full of dignity; and that was a good heart that
lies there so still.

In England, thirteen years ago, my wife and I were stabbed to the heart
with a cablegram which said, "Susy was mercifully released today." I
had to send a like shot to Clara, in Berlin, this morning. With the
peremptory addition, "You must not come home." Clara and her husband
sailed from here on the 11th of this month. How will Clara bear it?
Jean, from her babyhood, was a worshiper of Clara.

Four days ago I came back from a month's holiday in Bermuda in perfected
health; but by some accident the reporters failed to perceive this. Day
before yesterday, letters and telegrams began to arrive from friends
and strangers which indicated that I was supposed to be dangerously
ill. Yesterday Jean begged me to explain my case through the Associated
Press. I said it was not important enough; but she was distressed and
said I must think of Clara. Clara would see the report in the German
papers, and as she had been nursing her husband day and night for four
months (2) and was worn out and feeble, the shock might be disastrous.
There was reason in that; so I sent a humorous paragraph by telephone to
the Associated Press deny