“Oh!” she groaned, as if an old wound had suddenly been opened. “Oh, oh heavens!”
It was a small portrait of Otto’s. How did it come there, among all those old letters? Ah, yes, she remembered, it was the proof of a photograph which once he had had taken for her. The portrait itself, which during her engagement she had constantly carried about her, she had returned him, together with his other presents, with the Bucchi fan. This little proof had got lost among her letters, and she had never given it another thought.
“Oh!” she groaned again. “Oh!”
She wept, she sobbed, she pressed the portrait to her lips. That little proof was now her greatest treasure, and for ever—yes, for ever—she would carry it about her, it was the only thing that was left to her out of her great happiness, that happiness that had slipped from between her fingers like a precious bird. And this was the only little feather it had left behind.
“Otto—Otto,” she murmured. And her tears and kisses covered the little piece of cardboard.
[[257]]
In her own room Madame van Raat still sat meditating. Sadly, her eyes full of tears, she shook her head. How was it possible, while she had been so long happy with her husband, that her dear little Elly had known so little of real pleasure? and in her piety—the piety and childlike faith of a simple heart, a heart full of gratitude for that which once had been granted it—she folded her shrivelled hands and prayed, prayed for her dear little Elly, prayed that she might be happy.
Next morning, at the breakfast-table, a sudden impulse moved Eline.
“Little madam,” she began in soft, trembling tones, and she laid her hands on that of the old lady. “Little madam, I wanted to ask you something. Do you see anything of Erlevoort now?”
The old lady looked at her as though she would fain have guessed Eline’s thoughts, but she could not gather anything from those feverish eyes, from those nervously-moving fingers.