The tenth of September came. How swiftly the days flew by!

　　One morning, a true autumn morning, with cold mist falling over theearth, in the rising sun, she sat under the porch of the chapel of theshipwrecked mariners, where the widows go to pray, with eyes fixed andglassy, throbbing temples tightened as by an iron hand.

　　These sad morning mists had begun two days before, and on thisparticular day Gaud had awakened with a still more bitter uneasiness,caused by the forecast of advancing winter. Why did this day, thishour, this very moment, seem to her more painful than the preceding?

　　Often ships are delayed a fortnight, even a month, for that matter.

　　But surely there was something different about this particularmorning, for she had come to-day for the first time to sit in theporch of this chapel and read the names of the dead sailors, perishedin their prime.

　　"In memory ofGAOS, YVON,Lost at seaNear the Norden-Fjord."Like a great shudder, a gust of wind rose from the sea, and at thesame time something fell like rain upon the roof above. It was onlythe dead leaves though; many were blown in at the porch; the old wind-tossed trees of the graveyard were losing their foliage in this risinggale, and winter was marching nearer.

　　"Lost at sea,Near the Norden-Fjord,In the storm of the 4th and 5th of August, 1880."She read mechanically under the arch of the doorway; her eyes soughtto pierce the distance over the sea. That morning it was untraceableunder the gray mist, and a dragging drapery of clouds overhung thehorizon like a mourning veil.

　　Another gust of wind, and other leaves danced in in whirls. A strongergust still, as if the western storm that had strewn those dead overthe sea, wished to deface the very inscriptions that remembered theirnames to the living.

　　Gaud looked with involuntary persistency at an empty space upon thewall that seemed to yawn expectant. By a terrible impression she waspursued, the thought of a fresh slab which might soon, perhaps, beplaced there, with another name which she did not even dare to thinkof in such a spot.

　　She felt cold, and remained seated on the granite bench, her headreclining against the stone wall.

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