* * * *

Her firm writing, more like a man's than a woman's looked a little shaky
at the end--Was she crying perhaps when she wrote the letter--the poor
little girl--What will the death mean to her eventually? Will the
necessity to work be lessened?

But even the gravity of the news did not prevent a feeling of joy and
relief in me--I would see her again--Only four days to wait!

But what a strange note!--not any exhibition of feeling! she would not
share even that natural emotion of grief with me. Her work is business,
and a well bred person ought not to mix anything personal into it.--How
will she be--? Colder than ever? or will it have softened her--.

She will probably be more unbending to Burton than to me.

The weather has changed suddenly, the wind is sighing, and I know that
the summer is over--I shall have the sitting-room fire lighted and
everything as comfortable as I can when she does turn up, and I shall
have to stay here until then since I cannot communicate with her in any
way. This ridiculous obscurity as to her address must be cleared away.
I must try to ask her casually, so as not to offend her.

* * * * *

A week has passed--.

Alathea came on Thursday--I was sickeningly nervous on Thursday morning.
I resented it extremely. As yet the only advance I have made is that I
can control most of the outward demonstrations of my perturbations, but
not the sensations themselves. I was sitting in my chair quite still
when the door opened, and in she came--Just the scrap of a creature in
dead black. Although there was no crepe, one could see that the garments
were French trappings of woe, that is, she had a veil hanging from her
simple small hat. I felt that she had had to buy these things for the
funeral, and probably could not afford a second set of more dowdy ones
for her working clothes, so that there was that indescribable air of
elegance about her appearance which had shown in the _Bois_ that Sunday.
The black was supremely becoming to her transparent white skin, and
seemed to set off the bright bronze brown of her hair--the rebellious
little curls had slipped out beside her ears, but the yellow horn
spectacles were as uncompromising as ever--I could not see whether her
eyes were sad or no--her mouth was firm as usual.

"I want to tell you of my sympathy," I said immediately--"I was so sorry
not to know your address that I might have expressed it