Should he ask her to join him at Waxholm, in
the Stockholm Archipelago, at the hotel where they had spent so many
happy hours during the period of their engagement? Splendid idea!
There they could, for two whole days, re-live in memory the first
beautiful spring days of their lives, which had flown, never to return
again.
He sat down and made the suggestion in an impassioned love-letter. She
answered by return agreeing to his proposal, happy that the same idea
had occurred to both of them.
* * * * *
Two days later he arrived at Waxholm and engaged rooms at the hotel.
It was a beautiful September day. He dined alone, in the great
dining-room, drank a glass of wine and felt young again. Everything
was so bright and beautiful. There was the blue sea outside; only the
birch trees on the shore had changed their tints. In the garden the
dahlias were still in full splendour, and the perfume of the mignonette
rose from the borders of the flower beds. A few bees still visited the
dying calyces but returned disappointed to their hives. The fishing
boats sailed up the Sound before a faint breeze, and in tacking the
sails fluttered and the sheets shook; the startled seagulls rose into
the air screaming, and circled round the fishermen who were fishing
from their boats for small herring.
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