Her opinion was verified. Sybrandt's spine was fatally injured; and he lay groaning, and helpless, fed and tended by her he had so deeply injured.
The news was sent to Tergou; and Catherine came over.
It was a terrible blow to her. Moreover she accused herself as the cause. "Oh, false wife, oh, weak mother," she cried. "I am rightly punished for my treason to my poor Eli."
She sat for hours at a time by his bedside rocking herself in silence; and was never quite herself again; and the first grey hairs began to come in her poor head from that hour.
As for Sybrandt, all his cry was now for Gerard. He used to whine to Margaret like a suffering hound, "Oh, sweet Margaret, oh, bonny Margaret, for our Lady's sake find Gerard, and bid him take his curse off me. Thou art gentle, thou art good; thou wilt entreat for me, and he will refuse thee nought." Catherine shared his belief that Gerard could cure him, and joined her entreaties to his. Margaret hardly needed this. The burgomaster and his agents having failed, she employed her own, and spent money like water. And among these agents poor Luke enrolled himself. She met him one day looking very thin, and spoke to him compassionately. On this he began to blubber, and say he was more miserable than ever; he would like to be good friends again upon almost any terms.
"Dear heart," said Margaret, sorrowfully, "why can you not say to yourself, now I am her little brother, and she is my old, married sister, worn down with care? Say so, and I will indulge thee, and pet thee, and make thee happier than a prince."
"Well, I will," said Luke savagely, "sooner than keep away from you altogether. But above all give me something to do. Perchance I may have better luck this time."
"Get me my marrige lines," said Margaret, turning sad and gloomy in a moment.
"That is as much as to say, get me him! for where they are he is."
"Not so. He may refuse to come nigh me; but certes he will not deny a poor woman, who loved him once, her lines of betrothal. How can she go without them into any honest man's house?"