with her and her daughter--an
odd dark little thing, five or six years old. Suddenly Mrs F. came
in. She was in a state of agitation and excitement by no means
healthy (I should suppose) for one in her condition. She held a
letter in her hand and waved it in the air, crying, 'Sir R.'s dead,
Sir R.'s dead! We can be married! Oh, we're in time, in time, in
time!' Extraordinary as such exclamations may appear when the
circumstances and my own presence are considered, I have repeated
them _verbatim_. Then she sank down on the sofa, Madame de Kries
kneeling by her, while the Imp (as I called the child, whom I
disliked) stared at her open-eyed, wondering no doubt what the fuss
was about. Directly after F. came in, almost as upset as Mrs F.,
and the pair between them managed to explain to us that she had
received a letter from Sir R.'s servant (with whom she had
apparently maintained some communication), announcing that his
master had, after two days' illness, died of heart complaint on the
6th June. 'Think of the difference it makes, the enormous
difference!' she gasped, jumping up again and standing in the
middle of the room. She was so full of this idea that she did not
spare a thought to the dead man or to anything which might strike
us as peculiar or distasteful in her own attitude and the way in
which she received the news. 'We shall be married directly,' she
continued with that strange absence of shame or pretence which
always marked her, 'and then it'll be all right, and nobody'll be
able to say a word in the future.' She went on in this strain for a
long while, until Madame de Kries at last insisted on her calming
herself, and proposed to accompany her to her own house. At this
point I made my excuses and retired, the Imp following me to the
door and asking me, as I went out, why people had to be married
again when other people died; she was a child who needed wiser and
firmer bringing-up than her mother gave her.

I did not myself see Captain and Mrs F. again, as I left Heidelberg
the next day, 22nd June. I learnt however from Madame de Kries that
the wedding was hurried on and took place on the day following my
departure; after this the pair went to Baden, and there, a
fortnight later, the child--a boy--was born. I must confess that I
was