'
As I spoke I saw that lights were flashing to and fro in the windows
of the Hall. 'My poor father is dead,' I said. I turned and ran up
the road. 'Oh, that I could have seen him once again!' At the hall
door I was met by a servant, and learnt that, while I had been
love-making on the sands, a message had come from the Continent with
news of my father's death.
VI
There was no meeting Winifred on the next night.
It was decided that my uncle's private secretary should go to
Switzerland to bring the body to England. I (remembering my promise
about the mementos) insisted on accompanying him. We started on the
morrow, preceded by a message to my father's Swiss friends ordering
an embalmment. Before starting I tried to see Winifred; but she had
gone to Dullingham.
On our arrival at the little Swiss town, we found that the embalmment
had been begun. The body was still in the hands of a famous
embalmer--an Italian Jew settled at Geneva, the only successful rival
there of Professor Laskowski. He was celebrated for having revived
the old Hebraic method of embalmment in spices, and improving it by
the aid of the modern discoveries in antiseptics of Laskowski, Signer
Franchina of Naples, and Dr.
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