Oh, no, I don't want that ... if he doesn't want it for himself!... I ... at least ... not yet.... No, no, nor ever.... Oh, I don't know, I don't know!... I am fond of Johan.... If I were free now, if I were a girl still.... But Addie, the children.... I don't know, I don't know.... That was why Addie thought it would be well ... for us not to see each other ... for a time. How he will miss the children!... Oh dear, is he really, really going? Yes, I hear him upstairs ...

packing.... What will people say? Not that it matters. We can say that he has to read, quietly, out there ... at Driebergen.... We can tell people something of the kind ... even if they do understand.... I simply can't go back to Driebergen. ... Oh, how will it work out, how will it all work out? That is just what Addie doesn't know either.... Do I? No, Heaven help me, I don't know any more than he does!... I am fond of Johan: shall I grow fonder of him, now that I am less fond of Addie? I don't know, I don't know.... Oh, if only I hadn't my children! ... As it is, I could wish, my G.o.d, how I could wish, for his sake and the children's, that I knew how to be happy at Driebergen, in that house of theirs, with all of them, and that I could go back to it! Shall I ever go back to it?... Shall I be Johan's wife one day, after all?... Oh, it is all so dark and uncertain!... Addie says a solution will come of itself.... We know nothing, he says.... Must I let it come as it will?... But how will it come?... Oh, even Addie, who is so wise, can find no solution!... There is ... there is no solution yet!... Will there ever be one?... Oh, if I could go back ... to the house down there!... Should I _ever_ be able to? Perhaps years hence! Perhaps never! Who can tell?...Is Johan ... really fond of me? Not only because he admires me ... not only for _that_?... Oh, that was the only reason why Addie loved me!... I know it now, I know it: that was his one idea, to have healthy children.... Now we are parted: parted for ever?... Or shall we come together again one day? Shall we ever become husband and wife again ... or not?... I do care for Johan. He is so matter-of-fact, so simple: I should have become very happy and simple with him, without all this thinking about things which I can't grasp or feel ... and which came haunting me down there, at Driebergen, gradually.... Oh, if I could only force myself to live there again!... But perhaps I never can!

Perhaps, in three or four years' time, I shall be Johan's wife ... and have to give up the children, the poor children, to Addie!..."

Now she sobbed, because she did not know. The days and months would drift past slowly and slowly before she knew....

There is a sacred knowledge for ourselves, a knowledge so sacred that we know it only ... when the future is here....

CHAPTER x.x.xI

The months drifted by.

"It is strange," said Brauws, "that we haven't heard from Addie lately."

"How long is it since we did?" asked Constance, vaguely.

"Nearly a week."

"Yes, it must be close upon a week."

"His last letters were brighter."

"Do you think the travelling is doing him good?"

"He doesn't travel as another man would. In the three months that he has been away...."

"Yes, he will have learnt a good deal that will be useful to him ... in his profession."

"His letters were cheerful."

"I'm longing badly to see him again ... Listen to the wind!"

"That's the autumn coming."

"The summer is past. This is our typical weather. Look, here, out of my window, you can see the clouds coming up over the moor as you never do downstairs, because the trees in the garden hide all the view."

"Up here it reminds me sometimes of the Hague, in the Kerkhoflaan."

"But it's wider, wider...."

"And finer."

"There, they're coming up, the clouds.... That must be rain.... They're all grey and dark purple: I have never seen such purple as in our skies down here."

"You're able to live under them now."

"Now I am. But it took so long ... that I had to get old first. I'm old now and it's all right now.... Look, look: the clouds are drifting along.... That means storm...."

"For days on end."

"Oh, I am yearning for Addie!... How long is it since we saw him? Three months, isn't it?... Three months! What an age!... We are all yearning for him...."

"His father is counting the days till he returns.... Poor Hans!"

"Poor Henri!... Even Mamma was asking the other day, where Addie was."

"She always knows him."

"Ernst and Paul can't get on without him."

"And he has an excellent influence on Alex: the boy's doing very well."

"Yes, he's grown so calm and manly ... latterly."

"Guy's letters are satisfactory, are they not?"

"Yes. It's kind of you, Brauws, to take so much interest ... in all of us."

"Well, I'm living ... with you all."

"You belong to us."

"It is like one family."

"Family.... Yes, there is such a thing as family. In the old days, I often used to think that it was just a word."

"No, it's there, only...."

"Yes, I understand what you mean.... Sometimes it does not begin to take shape until we ourselves are no longer young.... It was there for Mamma, whereas for us, at that time ... But for Mamma it was an illusion and...."

"For us ... it is indeed a reality...."

"In so far that we think so ... we old people."

"No, no, it is so."

"I am quite willing to believe it is.... Yes.... Addie ought soon to be home again."

"And then?"

"I think ... he will stay _here_."

"And Mathilde?"

"_There_ ... with the children."