“What is that?” asked Erica, looking up quickly.
“Death,” he replied quietly.
She made no answer, but the word did not jar upon her, for she was one of those who have learned that death is indeed the Gate of Life.
Silently she pushed in the stops and locked the organ.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
One spring evening, rather more than two years after the wedding, Sigrid was working away in the little back garden, to which, now that her household duties were light, she devoted a good deal of her time. It joined the garden of Rowan Tree House, and, for greater convenience, an opening had been made in the hedge, and a little green gate put up. Upon this gate leaned Cecil chatting comfortably, her tennis racquet under her arm, and with a pleasant consciousness that the work of the day was over, and that Roy and Frithiof might soon be expected for the nightly game which, during the season, they seldom cared to miss.
“They are late this evening,” said Sigrid. “I wonder whether Herr Sivertsen has caught Frithiof. I hope not, for the tennis does him so much good.”
“Is he working very hard?” asked Cecil.
“He always works furiously; and just now I think he has got what some one called ‘the lust of finishing’ upon him; we see very little of him, for when he is not at business he is hard at work over Herr Sivertsen’s manuscript. But it really seems to agree with him; they say, you know, that work without worry harms no one.”
“A very moral precept,” said a voice behind her, and glancing up she saw Frithiof himself crossing the little lawn.