"If there's anything ... that I can do for you, you'll tell me, won't you? Tell me frankly.... It's very difficult for me, I know ... to look after all of you ... but, if I don't, n.o.body else will.... So tell me plainly if I can help you in any way...."

"There's nothing at the moment, Ernst...."

"But later on?..."

"Perhaps."

"Then I shall be very glad to help. You must ask me straight out."

"I will."

"Look here ... you must be careful...."

"Of what?"

"Of the brother.... The fellow's a scoundrel. Take care, don't speak too loud: he's standing behind the door. You see, he can't reach so high."

"What do you mean?"

"He can't reach up to my poor vases. He would have to take the steps ...

and he won't do that in a hurry."

"What used he to do to the vases, Ernst?"

"Take them in his hands."

"I dare say he admired them."

"No, he used to break them ... on purpose. He ... he...."

"What, Ernst?"

"He used to throttle them. Hush! He used to wring their necks with his vile fingers."

Then he realized at length that he was saying too much and he gave a loud, kindly laugh:

"You don't believe that he used to throttle them. Well, at any rate, they're safer up there."

"At least, he can't break them."

"No. What's the matter with Addie? He's not looking well."

"Nothing. He's staying on to talk to you."

"Is there anything I can do for him?"

"Perhaps there is, Ernst. Have a talk with him."

"You people are a heavy burden on me...."

"I must go now, dear."

She kissed him good-bye.

"Be careful," he whispered.

Suddenly, he swung open the door:

"There!" he cried, triumphantly. "Did you see? The scoundrel slips away so quickly. Just like a ghost. No, more like a devil."

She gave a last glance at Addie; her eyelids flickered at him and she went away. Ernst closed the door very carefully.

"He simply can't go on living by himself," thought Constance, as she hurried to the Van Saetzemas'.

It was a very small house in a side-street at Duinoord; and she found Van Saetzema sick and ailing in a stuffy little sitting-room; she saw Caroline, too, bitter-eyed and bitter-mouthed, generally embittered by her dull existence as spinster of nearly thirty, with no prospect of marrying. Meanwhile, Adolphine kept her sister waiting. She had obviously run upstairs to put on a clean tea-gown. At the back of the little house, under the grey sky, which sent down a false, morning light through the heavy rain-clouds, the atmosphere seemed full of bitterness ... bitterness because they were ill and poor and disappointed; and all this dreariness was scantily and narrowly housed between the father, mother and daughter, in the little room where they kept getting in one another's way. A melancholy born of pity welled up in Constance; and she tried to talk cheerfully, while Van Saetzema coughed and complained, Caroline, bitter-mouthed and bitter-eyed, sat silent and Adolphine suddenly, with no attempt at preamble, observed to Constance:

"It's splendid air here, at Duinoord.... And the house is extraordinarily convenient...."

But her boasting voice choked as she completed her sentence more humbly:

"For the four of us."

"And where is Marietje?" asked Constance.

"Upstairs. She likes being upstairs, in her own little room...."

"How is she to-day?"

"Just the same."

"May I see her?"

Adolphine rose with some hesitation. But she took Constance upstairs and opened a door:

"Marietje, here's Aunt Constance."

The girl rose from her chair in the grey light of the little room. She was tall and pale and, in that light, seemed suddenly to blossom up like a lily of sorrow, with the white head drooping at the neck, a little on one side. The very fair hair hung limply about the temples. It was heavy--her only attraction--and was wrung into a heavy knot which she wore low at her neck. The movements of her long arms, of her long, thin hands betrayed a listless, lingering anaemia; and her blouse hung in folds over her flat bosom. She was twenty-six, but looked younger; her lackl.u.s.tre eyes were innocent of all pa.s.sion, as though she were incapable of ever becoming a woman, as though her senses were dying away like some fading lily on its bending stalk.

"Good-morning, Auntie."

The little room was grey and white as a nun's cell, with the cloistered simplicity of a hermitage.

"I'm so glad to see you, Marietje."

"Auntie, Mamma said that you and Uncle...."

"Yes, Marietje, we'll be glad to have you with us. Mamma has told you, hasn't she?... Then Addie can...."

"It's very kind of you, Auntie. But ... but I would rather not come."