"Bills?" she wondered for a moment.

Then she shivered and began to tremble so violently that she dropped into Addie's chair. She had recognized Guy's hand.

There were three letters. One was addressed to herself and her husband: to "Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance...." The second: to "Addie...." The third: to "Mamma...."

She sat distraught, staring at the three letters vacantly, without putting out her hand. A cloud of white squares seemed to whirl about her: it was as if the envelopes were flying round in a circle before her eyes. And she felt suddenly faint.

"What is it? What does it mean?" she asked herself, aloud.

She looked at Guy's work-table: the books were there, neatly arranged on the big atlases. She got up and trembled so violently that she felt herself sinking away, into an abyss. She rang the bell. The door was open. She heard the maid on the stairs:

"Truitje!"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Truitje, I'm here ... in Mr. Addie's study."

"What is it, ma'am?"

"Call your master ... at once."

"But how pale you look, ma'am! What is it, ma'am?"

"Nothing, Truitje. Call the master at once."

"Aren't you well?"

"Yes, yes, only call the master."

The maid went away in dismay; the stairs creaked under her hurried tread.... Constance had sunk back into the chair again and sat waiting.

Downstairs the piano sounded, under Paul's fingers, and she followed the tune, _Siegmund's Love-song_:

"He plays well, he plays well," she thought.

She was half-fainting; the white squares still surrounded her, because of the three letters, there, on the table.

She now heard a footstep on the stairs; she followed the creaking as it came nearer. It was her husband, at last.

"What's the matter, Constance?"

Her throat would not allow a word to pa.s.s; she merely pointed to the table.

"Well, what is it? Letters? For Addie?"

She continued to point. He looked, recognized Guy's hand. He glanced at her; she said nothing. He now opened the letter to "Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance":

"Has the boy gone mad?"

Constance looked up with a question in her eyes. Every kind of thought raced through her, so rapidly that she could not follow them. And yet she seemed to see one thought flash across them slantwise: had three letters from Alex been lying there, from Alex who was always so much obsessed by the vision of terror and blood that had shocked his young imagination, she would have feared the worst.

Van der Welcke handed her the letter without a word; she read it greedily. Guy wrote briefly, wrote difficult, sincere words of grat.i.tude. Oh, it was not want of grat.i.tude to Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance that had made him go without taking leave of all who were dear to him! He was not ungrateful to Addie! But it was just because under all his cheerfulness he had felt himself quietly growing sad under all their kindness ... while he found it impossible to go on working. And of course he knew that, if he had said to Addie, "I can't work at books; what I want, very vaguely and I don't know how, is to make my own way,"

Addie would have let him go, because Addie understood everybody and everything so well. But it was just this, the conversations, the leave-takings, that he feared, because within him there was so much inert weakness, because he could never have gone, if he had had to speak, if he had had to take leave; and that was why he was going away like this, with his bicycle and his bit of pocket-money.

"But the boy's mad!" cried Van der Welcke. "To clear out like this at his age, with no money and just his bicycle! The boy's mad! I must telegraph to Addie at once."

"He will be out ... and on his way to us: this is his day for coming down."

"Which train does he come by?"

"The half-past eleven as a rule."

The girls, Gerdy and Mary, came in, with their hats on:

"Are you coming, Aunt? The carriage is there."

"The carriage?"

"When we've been for our drive, we can fetch Addie from the station,"

said Mary.

Constance burst into sobs.

"Auntie, Auntie, what's the matter?"

Van der Welcke left the room, taking the letter for Addie with him:

"How are we to tell her?" he thought to himself.

Constance, upstairs, had an attack of nerves. She sobbed as violently, felt as miserable in the depths of her being as if it had been her own child that had left the paternal house ... for good.

CHAPTER XXVI

In the midst of the sunshine on that summer day a spirit of melancholy descended upon the whole of the big house and set the nerves of all the inmates tingling. Addie had been, had read Guy's letter, had left at once ... for Rotterdam. Downstairs, in the morning-room, Adeline sobbed without ceasing; and from the sunlit conservatory the old grandmother stared at her through the vista of the rooms, because she did not understand.... Adeline lay sobbing in Emilie's arms; Marie and Paul were with her too; upstairs, Adeletje and Mary remained with Constance.

Brauws appeared at the door:

"What has happened?" he asked, in a whisper.

Van der Welcke seized him by the arm, took him into the garden. Klaasje lay half-asleep against the thick trunk of a beech, with Jack nestling in her little skirts, both tired with playing. The child was humming a tune, looking up at the sky, dreaming away amid all the gold that rained down upon her from between the leaves like glittering coins.

"What has happened?" Brauws asked again.

But Van der Welcke could not speak; his throat refused to let the words through.

"Good-morning, Uncle Brauws!" cried Klaasje, dreamily. "Look, Uncle Brauws, I'm very rich. It's raining golden sovereigns over me ... out of the beech-tree, out of the beech-tree!... Out of the beech-tree golden sovereigns are raining over Klaasje!" she hummed rhythmically.