"No, I didn't know. I saw him only three weeks ago.... I wish he would come and live here, at Driebergen, say in a nice, bright room at a good boarding-house. I really think the country life would do him good and he probably feels rather lonely at the Hague.... But he wouldn't do it.... He's been living all these years in the same room and seems so much attached to that room that he simply can't leave it ... and yet he is never satisfied with the landlady and her brother. That brother is his constant bugbear.... And yet I thought that he was living quietly enough.... Is he still always calm, however self-absorbed he may be? You say he hasn't been well lately?"
"Well, he's not as bad as he was—how long ago is it?—ten or eleven years ago."
"Eleven years."
"He's not like that. But he looks very queer at times ... and...."
"I'll go to the Hague to-morrow and look him up," said Constance, with decision.
"My dear!" said Adolphine, in an aggrieved tone. "I assure you that he's nothing out of the way. Besides, we are there ... if anything should happen."
"He's living by himself too much. I've thought it for a long time. And I reproach myself...."
"I've seen Uncle Ernst once or twice lately, Mamma," said Addie, to calm her. "He was just as usual; no worse. I pressed him then to come and live at Driebergen. He refused ... but he was quite calm about it."
"He has not been calm the last few days," said Adolphine.
"I shall go to the Hague to-morrow," Constance repeated, tremulously.