But stranger still, five minutes after this the good old professor was sitting opposite this young lady, and had given orders that no one should come near the door till he rang the bell.
“Dear me, my dear, de-ar me!” he was saying; “and you really tell me that a sea-bird carried this message all the way from the icy north? But there, there, I see, it is his own handwriting. And yours is a strange, not to say a sad story. But it will all come right in the end—perhaps, you know.”
“Oh, sir!” cried Meta, “you will make some effort to save him? You will not let him die in those terrible regions of gloom and desolation?”
“Gloom and desolation, dear? Yes, yes, to be sure, you’re quite right; they must be somewhat gloomy and desolate. No morning paper, no morning rolls or hot toast. Well, well, we will see in a day or two what can be done. The Kittywake, too, she has been posted long ago a lost ship and the insurance paid. But even she might turn up, you know. I only say she might. Stranger things have happened.”
Meta took the professor’s soft white hand as she bade him good-bye in the doorway, and touched it reverently with her lips.
“Good-bye, my dear, good night. You’ve got nice lodgings? Yes, I think you said you had. Good night, good night. God bless you.”
The savants are assembled in the largest room in the professor’s house—a room where lectures are often given and wonderful experiments made, but a cosy room for all that, with two great fires burning in it, and a soft crimson light diffused throughout it from the great candelabra.
There is a stranger here to-night—a stranger to us, I mean—a man about fifty, a sailor evidently, from his build and bronze. He is very pleasant in manner and voice; his face is handsome, and his smile strikes you as coming directly from the heart.
They had been dining; the walnuts and wine were now on the table, and conversation was at its best.