The sun sinks in a superb, audacious blending of hues; orange and scarlet, pink and blue, and lemon-yellow streaks with splotches of intensest purple are hurled from a palette of fire in a frenzy of color. The fishers pause and look curiously at the silent little figure keeping vigil next the flower-decked coffin, as she passes them in the pearl-mists of the summer night,—pearl-mists that wrap her in a chilly shroud; and she fancies that spirit hands spread the canopy of starred blue over them as they glide on; and the moon peers down and nods to her, and another moon runs sea-ward on a shining silver river; and the foam in their wake ripples together like frothing diamond chips; and the dew falls on the withering flowers, and bathes her pale face and moistens her dry lips; and the night breeze sings sadly to the thrumming of unseen harps, and soothes her troubled spirit with tender whisperings that only the stricken in soul can catch in snatches from the spirit of nature. The boy takes the wheel, and the captain brews her some coffee. They have forgotten at the house, in their care for the funeral, to provide her with food or rugs. She is too deliciously weary (there is no new effort either to make, unless she chooses) to care. When he brings it to her she swallows it gratefully, and follows him to the stuffy little cabin, and lies down as he suggests, with her head on a pilot coat, and he covers her tenderly with another: she is so small and frail it takes but little. Somehow it smells "homey," with its mingled odor of tobacco and brine and man, and touches her chilled, lone soul like the honest clasp of a warm human hand, with a promise of rest and shelter to come; and under its homely spell she falls asleep.
And so these two poor human souls, tossed together for good or ill for a brief space, sleep their last together through the summer night. He, to no mortal awakening; she, perchance, to a brighter dawn.
THE END.
[1] The title "Frue" is properly borne by the wives of officials, but all the professional men's wives bear it. "Madam" is used by the small shopkeepers or lower burgher class, but the distinction is dying out. A Frue's daughter is Fröken; Madam's Jeomfrue.