nt as though struck by my
question, and then shook her head. 'No, no,' she said decidedly; 'he
will not appear.'
A very pretty little maidservant who was bringing in our luggage was so
much perturbed by my innocent inquiry that she let the things drop.
'Hedwig, do not be a fool,' said the widow sternly. 'The gentleman,' she
went on, turning to me, 'cannot come, because he is dead.'
'Oh,' I said, silenced by the excellence of the reason.
Charlotte, being readier of speech, said 'Indeed.'
The reason was a good one; but when I heard it it seemed as if the
pleasant rooms with the beds all ready and everything set out for the
expected one took on a look of awfulness. It is true it was now past
eight o'clock, and the sun had gone, and across the bay the dusk was
creeping. I went out through the long windows to the little verandah. It
had white pillars of great apparent massiveness, which looked as though
they were meant to support vast weights of masonry; and through them I
watched the water rippling in slow, steely ripples along the sand just
beneath me, and the ripples had the peculiar lonely sound that slight
waves have in the evening when they lick a deserted shore.
'When was he expected?' I heard Charlotte, within the room, ask in a
depressed voice.
'To-day,' said the widow.
'To-day?' echoed Charlotte.
'That is why the beds are made. It is lucky for you ladies.'
'Very,' agreed Charlotte; and her voice was hollow.
'He died yesterday--an accident. I received the telegram only this
morning. It is a great misfortune for me. Will the ladies sup? I have
some provisions in the house sent on by the gentleman for his supper
to-night. He, poor soul, will never sup again.'
The widow, more moved by this last reflection than she had yet been,
sighed heavily. She then made the observation usual on such occasions
that it is a strange world, and that one is here to-day and gone
to-morrow--or rather, correcting herself, here yesterday and gone
to-day--and that the one thing certain was the _schoenes Essen_ at that
moment on the shelves of the larder. Would the ladies not seize the
splendid opportunity and sup?
'No, no, we will not sup,' Charlotte cried with great decision. 'You
won't eat here to-night, will you?' she asked through the yellow
window-curtains, which made her look very pale. 'It is always horrid in
lodgings. Shall we go to that nice red-brick hotel we passed, where the
people were sitting under
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