Two seconds later her voice rang out in a cry of alarm: "Mother! mother! Oh, John!"
Suydam sprang up-stairs, and found her just outside of the door of the old ladies' room. She was trembling, and she gripped his hand.
"Oh, John," she said, "something terrible has happened! It was even worse than I thought! They really were starving!"
Then she led him silently into the room, where her mother joined them almost immediately.
After waiting five minutes the postman at the front door below became impatient. He rang the bell sharply and whistled again. He was kicking the snow off his boots and swinging his arms to keep warm, when at last the door opened and John Suydam appeared, with the long blue envelope in his hand.
"I'm afraid that you will have to take this letter away again," Suydam said to the postman. "There is no one here now to sign for it. The Marquisa de los Rios is dead!"
OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR
AN INTERVIEW WITH MISS MARLENSPUYK
T was a chill day early in January, and at four in the afternoon a gray sky shut in the city, like the cylindrical background of a cyclorama. Now and then a wreath of steam chalked itself on the slate-colored horizon; and across the river, far over to the westward, there was a splash of pink, sole evidence of the existence of the sun, which no one had seen for twenty-four hours.