CHAPTER XI.

"IF ONE HAS MADE THE ONE GREAT SACRIFICE."


THERE was a suicide in the Kurhaus one afternoon. A Dutchman, Vandervelt,
had received rather a bad account of himself from the doctor a few days
previously, and in a fit of depression, so it was thought, he had put a
bullet through his head. It had occurred through Marie's unconscious
agency. She found him lying on his sofa when she went as usual to take
him his afternoon glass of milk. He asked her to give him a packet which
was on the top shelf of his cupboard.

"Willingly," she said, and she jumped nimbly on the chair, and gave him
the case.

"Anything more?" she asked kindly, as she watched him draw himself up
from the sofa. She thought at the time that he looked wild and strange;
but then, as she pathetically said afterwards, who did not look wild
and strange in the Kurhaus?

"Yes," he said. "Here are five francs for you."

She thought that rather unusual too; but five francs, especially coming
unexpectedly like that, were not to be despised, and Marie determined to
send them off to that Mutterli at home in the nut-brown châlet at Grüsch.

So she thanked Mynheer van Vandervelt, and went off to her pantry to
drink some cold tea which the English people had left, and to clean the