The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lost, by Edward Bellamy

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Title: Lost
1898

Author: Edward Bellamy

Release Date: September 21, 2007 [EBook #22712]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST ***

Produced by David Widger

LOST

By Edward Bellamy

1898

The 25th of May, 1866, was no doubt to many a quite indifferent date,
but to two persons it was the saddest day of their lives. Charles
Randall that day left Bonn, Germany, to catch the steamer home to
America, and Ida Werner was left with a mountain of grief on her gentle
bosom, which must be melted away drop by drop, in tears, before she
could breathe freely again.

A year before, Randall, hunting for apartments, his last term at
the university just begun, had seen the announcement, "_Zimmer zu
vermiethen_," in the hall below the flat where the Werners lived. Ida
answered his ring, for her father was still at his government office,
and her mother had gone out to the market to buy the supper. She would
much rather her mother had been at home to show the gentleman the rooms;
but, knowing that they could not afford to lose a chance to rent them,
she plucked up courage, and, candle in hand, showed him through the
suite. When he came next day with his baggage, he learned for the first
time what manner of apartments he had engaged; for although he had
protracted the investigation the previous evening to the furthest
corner, and had been most exacting as to explanations, he had really
rented the rooms entirely on account of a certain light in which a set
of Madonna features, in auburn hair, had shown at the first opening of
the door.

A year had passed since this, and a week ago a letter from home had
stated that his father, indignant at his unexplained stay six months
beyond the end of his course, had sent him one last remittance, barely
sufficient for a steamer ticket, with the intimation that if he did not
return on a set day, he must thenceforth attend to his own exchequer.
The 25th was the last day on which he could leave Bonn to catch the
requisite steamer. Had it been in November, nature at least would have
sympathized; it was