“In memory of GAOS, YVON, Lost at sea Near the Norden-Fjord.”
Like a great shudder, a gust of wind rose from the sea, and at the same time something fell like rain upon the roof above. It was only the dead leaves though; many were blown in at the porch; the old wind-tossed trees of the graveyard were losing their foliage in this rising gale, and winter was marching nearer.
“Lost at sea, Near the Norden-Fjord, In the storm of the 4th and 5th of August, 1880.”
She read mechanically under the arch of the doorway; her eyes sought to pierce the distance over the sea. That morning it was untraceable under the gray mist, and a dragging drapery of clouds overhung the horizon like a mourning veil.
Another gust of wind, and other leaves danced in in whirls. A stronger gust still, as if the western storm that had strewn those dead over the sea, wished to deface the very inscriptions that remembered their names to the living.
Gaud looked with involuntary persistency at an empty space upon the wall that seemed to yawn expectant. By a terrible impression she was pursued, the thought of a fresh slab which might soon, perhaps, be placed there, with another name which she did not even dare to think of in such a spot.
She felt cold, and remained seated on the granite bench, her head reclining against the stone wall.
. . . “near the Norden-Fjord, In the storm of the 4th and 5th of August, At the age of 23 years, Requiescat in pace!”
Then Iceland loomed up before her, with its little cemetery lighted up from below the sea-line by the midnight sun. Suddenly in the same empty space on the wall, with horrifying clearness she saw the fresh slab she was thinking of; a clear white one, with a skull and cross-bones, and in a flash of foresight, a name—the worshipped name of “Yann Gaos!” Then she suddenly and fearfully drew herself up straight and stiff, with a hoarse, wild cry in her throat like a mad creature.