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Book 1Twenty-One
One morning Mrs. Paul Auerbach came out into the garden and told her husband that his breakfast was ready. It was September, and he was cutting his grapes.
While she was bringing in his coffee he sat down and opened the morning paper. She heard him call to her, and knew by his voice that something terrible had happened. She ran into the dining- room. Paul did not speak, but pointed to the newspaper spread out on the table. Mrs. Auerbach saw the headlines and sank into a chair beside him. Together they read the cablegram from Milan.
Yesterday Clement Sebastian and James Mockford were drowned when their boat capsized in a sudden storm on Lake Como. There were three in the boat, Sebastian, his accompanist, and Gustave Wiertz, the Belgian violinist. The accident was seen from the shore, and two row-boats immediately put out from Cadenabbia, but only Wiertz was rescued. His account of the accident followed:
The breeze had stopped altogether, but they had not taken down their sail. When the hurricane from the mountains broke upon them, the boat was turned over immediately. Wiertz himself was struck by the boom and thrown out a considerable distance. He sank, and when he came up saw his two companions struggling in the water. He felt no alarm for Sebastian, who was a strong swimmer. Mockford could not swim and was apparently terrified; he had locked his arms about Sebastian`s neck. Wiertz thought Sebastian would be able to control a man so much slighter, so he swam toward the boats coming out from shore. The water was so cold that he was already growing numb, and he did not look over his shoulder again. When he was pulled into the first row-boat, the two heads had disappeared. The second rescue party went on, believing that the two men might be clinging to the overturned sail-boat. But they found no one. Mockford must have fastened himself to his companion with a strangle-hold and dragged him down. The bodies had not yet been recovered.
Auerbach looked at his watch. "My God, Minna, I must get to poor Lucy before she sees this! It is not seven o`clock yet. I think she never comes downstairs before eight."
"Wait, Papa, wait! I must go, too. I can put on my coat and go like this. Oh, the poor child, the poor child!"
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