Hope walked listlessly to where an electric lamp glowed under a Dresden shade, tearing open the envelope as she went. Unfolding the inclosure, she held it in the light’s glare; and then the little blue sheet dropped from her nerveless fingers, and she reeled. Had it not been for Marcelle she might have fallen; but the girl, burning with curiosity to learn the contents of the telegram--or cablegram, as it proved--had followed her mistress’s every movement, and now her arm was about her waist.
“Oh, m’amselle, m’amselle,” she cried in alarm; “my poor m’amselle! Is it that you hear the bad news?”
But Miss Van Tuyl made no reply. Recovering herself, she crossed the room and sat down in the chair by the window that Marcelle had just vacated. The girl stood for a moment irresolute. Then she stooped and picked up the sheet of blue paper, placing it on the table under the lamp. As she did so her quick eye took in enough to satisfy her as to its import. It was from Miss Van Tuyl’s brother in New York, and it repeated a cable just received. The words made a very deep impression on Marcelle because of one of them, of which, though it was quite as much French as it was English, she did not know the meaning.
“That he is here in Paris I can understand; and that he is alive and well, oh, yes!” she iterated and reiterated to herself; “but what is it he means by ‘_in-ex-pleek-able_’? ‘Conditions _in-ex-pleek-able_’? Oh, I fear, I fear, that is something very terrible.”
There came a gentle tap on Grey’s door; then a rap, louder and more insistent; and then repeated knocking, aggressive, commanding; and Grey, aroused suddenly from what was more stupor than sleep, sat up in bed, startled, crying:
“It is long after noon, Herr Arndt,” he said, bowing, “and the funeral is arranged for three o’clock.”
Grey rubbed his eyes and made an effort to collect his scattered senses.
“Ah, yes,” he murmured, after a moment; “Herr Schlippenbach’s funeral.”
“It is very wet,” Johann continued; “since six this morning it has been raining. I have ordered Herr Arndt’s coffee. It will be here presently.”
While Grey, in bathrobe and slippers, was sipping his _café au lait_ and nibbling a _brioche_, Captain Lindenwald presented himself.