But when at home alone, at night, a nervous anxious shiver of apprehension would run through her whole frame.

Was it right to be frightened already?  Was there even a single reason to be so? but she began to tremble at the mere idea of grounds for being afraid.

The 10th of September came.  How swiftly the days flew by!

One morning—­a true autumn morning, with cold mist falling over the earth in the rising sun—­she sat under the porch of the chapel of the shipwrecked mariners, where the widows go to pray; with eyes fixed and glassy, and throbbing temples tightened as by an iron band.

These sad morning mists had begun two days before; 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 whirls.  A stronger gust still; as if the western storm which had strewn those dead over the sea wished to deface the very inscriptions which kept their names in memory with the living.

Gaud looked with involuntary persistency at an empty space upon the wall which seemed to yawn expectant.  By a terrible impression, she was pursued by the thought of a fresh slab which might soon perhaps be placed there,—­with another name which she did not even dare 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, 1880
    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 crossbones, and in a flash of foresight a name,—­the worshiped 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 creature.