My stepfather died quickly, and as soon as he was dead, he regained some of his good looks. I left the hospital with the girl on my arm. She staggered like a sick person, and cried. Her handkerchief was squeezed into a ball in her hand; she alternately applied it to her eyes, and rolling it tighter, gazed at it as if it were her last and most precious possession.
Suddenly she stood still, pressing close to me, and said:
"I shall not live till the winter. Oh Lord, Lord! What does it mean?"
Then holding out her hand, wet with tears, to me: "Good-by. He thought a lot of you. He will be buried to-morrow."
"Shall I see you home?"
She looked about her.
"What for? It is daytime, not night."
From the corner of a side street I looked after her. She walked slowly, like a person who has nothing to hurry for. It was August. The leaves were already beginning to fall from the trees. I had no time to follow my stepfather to the graveyard, and I never saw the girl again.