"He will get well again...."
"But even so he will not be allowed out...."
"No," said Ottilie, feebly. "Perhaps not, Mamma...."
She was holding the brittle, slender, wand-like old fingers in hers.... Downstairs, she knew, the brothers were waiting; Stefanie probably also; Ina too.... Adèle Takma had gone.
"Mamma," she said, all of a sudden, "do you know that somebody else is ill?"
"No, who?"
"Dr. Roelofsz."
"Roelofsz? Yes, I haven't seen him ... I haven't seen him for the last two days."
"Mamma," said Ottilie Steyn, turning her sorrowful little face—it was still a pretty face, with blue, child-like eyes—to her mother, "it's very sad, but ..."
No, she simply could not say it. She tried to withdraw her sentence, not to complete it; but the old woman had at once seized the meaning of those few words: