and on this
particular day Gaud had awakened with a still more bitter uneasiness,
caused by the forecast of advancing winter. Why did this day, this hour,
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 particular morning,
for she had come to-day for the first time to sit in the porch of this
chapel and read the names of the dead sailors, perished in their prime.

"In memory of GAOS, YVON, Lost at sea Near the Norden-Fjord."

Like a great shudder, a gust of wind rose from the sea, and at the same
time something fell like rain upon the roof above. It was only the dead
leaves though; many were blown in at the porch; the old wind-tossed
trees of the graveyard were losing their foliage in this rising gale,
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 sought to
pierce the distance over the sea. That morning it was untraceable under
the gray mist, and a dragging drapery of clouds overhung the horizon
like a mourning veil.

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

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

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

* * * * *

. . . "near the Norden-Fjord, In the storm of the 4th and 5th of
August, At the age of 23 years, _Requiescat in pace_!"

Then Iceland loomed up before her, with its little cemetery lighted up
from below the sea-line by the midnight sun. Suddenly in the same empty
space on the wall, with horrifying clearness she saw the fresh slab she
was thinking of; a clear white one, with a skull and cross-bones, and in
a flash of foresight, a name--the worshipped name of "Yann Gaos!" Then
she suddenly and fearfully drew herself up straight and stiff, with a
hoarse, wild cry in her throat like a mad creatur