"
Gaud laughed also. She was more animated and beautiful than ever, in
her great joy of expectancy.
But the days succeeded one another without result.
She still dressed up every day, and with a joyful look went down to the
harbor to gossip with the other wives. She said that this delay was
but natural: was it not the same event every year? These were such
safe boats, and had such capital sailors.
But when at home alone, at night, a nervous anxious shiver of
apprehension would run through her whole frame.
Was it right to be frightened already? Was there even a single reason
to be so? but she began to tremble at the mere idea of grounds for
being afraid.
The 10th of September came. How swiftly the days flew by!
One morning--a true autumn morning, with cold mist falling over the
earth in the rising sun--she sat under the porch of the chapel of the
shipwrecked mariners, where the widows go to pray; with eyes fixed and
glassy, and throbbing temples tightened as by an iron band.
These sad morning mists had begun two days before; and on this
particular day Gaud had awakened with a still more bitter uneasiness,
caused by the forecast of advancing winter.
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