"The mistress has been taken like this before," said old Anna, in a whisper.
They all, all except Daan Dercksz, knew that she had been taken like that before. They crowded round her. She had not fainted. Soon she opened her eyes, knew the doctor, knew the two women, but did not know her son Daan. She glared at him and then gave a sudden shiver, as if she had been struck by a resemblance.
"Mother! Mother!" cried Daan Dercksz.
She still stared, but she now realized that he was not a materialization of what she had just seen, realized that he was a son who resembled his father, the man whom she had first loved and then hated. Her fixed look died away; but the wrinkles in her face, in the later paroxysm of shuddering, remained motionless in their deep grooves, as though etched and bitten in.
Anna stroked her hand and wrist with the soft, regular movement of a light massage, to restore her consciousness entirely ... until the old blood melted and flowed again.
"To bed," murmured the old lady. "To bed...."
The two men went away, leaving her to the care of the women. At the bottom of the stairs, the dimly-lighted ground-floor shivered, full of shadow silent as the grave. Daan Dercksz took Roelofsz' arm, while the doctor hobbled laboriously down the stairs, from the bad leg on to the sound leg.
"What was it she saw?" asked Daan Dercksz.
"Ssh!" said the old doctor. "Yes-yes ... yes-yes...."
"What did she see?"