No sooner had Gysbert been dispatched on his journey to Rotterdam, than Jacqueline turned her attention to preparing breakfast. Much to her astonishment, Vrouw Voorhaas was not yet up and about, but she concluded that the woman was wearied out with hard work and anxiety, and was taking an extra, involuntary nap.
The most careful search in the larder revealed nothing that under ordinary circumstances would be considered in the least palatable. Jacqueline remembered two pigeons' eggs that had been laid the day before, and determined that they must go toward furnishing the breakfast-table. These, with some very thin gruel of pigeon grain completed the arrangements. Wondering that Vrouw Voorhaas had not yet appeared, and fearing lest something were the matter, she decided to go up and investigate the cause of this unusual state of affairs. At the door of the bedroom she paused, horror-struck at the sound of a curious muttering and groaning now grown terribly familiar to her ears. Then she opened the door. Her worst suspicions were verified—Vrouw Voorhaas had the plague!
The woman lay tossing and moaning, utterly unconscious of anything about her, muttering strange, incoherent sentences in her delirium. Amazed and shocked at what she heard, Jacqueline stood rooted to the spot listening.
"I will not eat it!—I must not eat it!—" cried the unconscious woman, "—It is for the children!—Oh, God, how I hunger!—" Then in a lower tone:—"Dirk Willumhoog thou shalt not harm them as thou didst endeavor to harm—" Here she appeared to fall into a restless sleep, and for a few moments her tossing form lay quiet; Jacqueline buried her face in her hands and wept with sheer bitterness and despair.
"Oh, Vrouw Voorhaas, Vrouw Voorhaas!—now I know what doth ail thee!" she sobbed aloud. "Thou hast starved thyself for our sakes, thou didst deceive us into thinking thou wast satisfied with a little, and now thou art reaping the results of thy sacrifice!" The realization that this faithful servant had brought herself to this pass by her own self-denial, occupied Jacqueline's mind to the exclusion of every other thought. "How wicked and ungrateful I have been," she blamed herself, "going out to nurse other people, when starvation and illness lay waiting right at my own door, and I never guessed! Oh, if Gysbert were only here!"
Then the necessity for doing something, and that speedily, forced itself upon her. Deciding that she could leave the sick woman more easily now than later, she ran out at once to find Dr. de Witt. He accompanied her without an instant's delay. When he reached the sick room he gave one keen glance at his patient, and then set about his work of relief, Jacqueline assisting him with the intelligence and skill perfected by much practice.
"Now," said he finally, "thou must make up thy mind, Juffrouw Jacqueline, to one thing. For the present thou must give up all thought of going on thy daily round with me, and devote thyself to the care of this thy companion. Her case is more critical than usual, having been brought on, I judge, by systematic starvation."
"But Jan!—" faltered the girl. "He is still very weak and needs my care."
"Let him come here and stay," ordered the doctor. "I will myself fetch him this afternoon, and thus thou wilt have both thy patients under thine eye. He also may be able to help thee a little. Where is thy brother?"
"He has gone out of the city on an errand of importance. I do not expect him back for two or three days," she answered.