Bernardine heard of Marie’s trouble, and rang for her to come.  Marie answered the bell, looking the picture of misery.  Her kind face was tear-stained, and her only voice was a sob.

Bernardine drew the girl to her.

“Poor old Marie,” she whispered.  “Come and cry your kind heart out, and then you will feel better.  Sit by me here, and don’t try to speak.  And I will make you some tea in true English fashion, and you must take it hot, and it will do you good.”

The simple sisterly kindness and silent sympathy soothed Marie after a time.  The sobs ceased, and the tears also.  And Marie put her hand in her pocket and gave Bernardine the five francs.

“Fraeulein Holme, I hate them.” she said.  “I could never keep them.  How could I send them now to my old mother?  They would bring her ill luck—­ indeed they would.”

The matter was solved by Bernardine in a masterly fashion.  She suggested that Marie should buy flowers with the money, and put them on the Dutchman’s coffin.  This idea comforted Marie beyond Bernardine’s most sanguine expectations.

“A beautiful tin wreath,” she said several times.  “I know the exact kind.  When my father died, we put one on his grave.”

That same evening, during table-d’hote, Bernardine told the Disagreeable Man the history of the afternoon.  He had been developing photographs, and had heard nothing.  He seemed very little interested in her relation of the suicide, and merely remarked: 

“Well, there’s one person less in the world.”

“I think you make these remarks from habit,” Bernardine said quietly, and she went on with her dinner, attempting no further conversation with him.  She herself had been much moved by the sad occurrence; every one in the Kurhaus was more or less upset; and there was a thoughtful, anxious expression on more than one ordinarily thoughtless face.  The little French danseuse was quiet:  the Portuguese ladies were decidedly tearful, the vulgar German Baroness was quite depressed:  the comedian at the Belgian table ate his dinner in silence.  In fact, there was a weight pressing down on all.  Was it really possible, thought Bernardine, that Robert Allitsen was the only one there unconcerned and unmoved?  She had seen him in a different light amongst his friends, the country folk, but it was just a glimpse which had not lasted long.  The young-heartedness, the geniality, the sympathy which had so astonished her during their day’s outing, astonished her still more by their total disappearance.  The gruffness had returned:  or had it never been absent?  The lovelessness and leadenness of his temperament had once more asserted themselves:  or was it that they had never for one single day been in the background?

These thoughts passed through her mind as he sat next to her reading his paper—­that paper which he never passed on to any one.  She hardened her heart against him; there was no need for ill-health and disappointment to have brought any one to a miserable state of indifference like that.  Then she looked at his wan face and frail form, and her heart softened at once.  At the moment when her heart softened to him, he astonished her by handing her his paper.