“Nobody, nobody knows yet ... except Louise and Marianne.”
“What is it?”
“Emilie ... Emilie has....”
“Has what?”
“She has gone away ... with Henri....”
“Gone away?”
“Run away perhaps ... with Henri.... I don’t know where. Van Raven doesn’t know where. Nobody knows. Adolph van Naghel, my brother-in-law the commissary, has made enquiries ... and has found out nothing.... We dissuaded her from seeking a divorce; so did Adolph. Then, no doubt because of that, she ran away with Henri, with her brother. She absolutely refuses to live with Eduard. She has run away.... Constance, where has she gone to? I don’t know! Constance, it’s a terrible thing! But keep it to yourself, don’t tell anybody. Mamma doesn’t know. I want to pretend, if there’s nothing else for it, if they don’t come back, that she has gone on a little journey, a trip somewhere, alone with her brother. We must pretend that, Constance. I don’t think they intend to come back. Henri has been very excited lately: he fought Eduard, came to blows with him, for ill-treating his sister. You know how fond they are of each other, Emilie and Henri. It’s almost unnatural, in a brother and sister. Now they’ve run away.... Oh dear, Constance, I am so terribly unhappy!”
She threw herself into Constance’ arms, sobbed, with her arms round Constance’ neck:
“Constance, Constance, help me!... I have no one to turn to, no one I can talk to. Adolph is helping me with the business-matters; Otto too. Louise is very kind; but she and Otto think that Emilie ought to divorce her husband, on the ground of cruelty. But, Constance, in our class, men don’t beat their wives! It never happens. It’s an awful thing. It only happens with the lower orders!... Oh dear, Constance, I am so unhappy!... The business-matters will be settled.... But there are debts. I thought that we were living within our income, but I don’t know: there appear to be debts. Bills mount up so.... I did so hope that the boys would finish their course. Frans will; but now Henri ... that mad idea ... going away with Emilie ... running away ... nobody knows where.... Oh dear, Constance, I am so unhappy: help me, do help me!”
She lay back limply in Constance’ arms and the tears flowed incessantly down her pale face, which in those few weeks had fallen away till it was the face of an old woman. She lay there feeble and ill; and it seemed as if Van Naghel’s death, coming suddenly as an additional catastrophe on that evening of misfortunes—her guests in the drawing-room, Emilie hiding upstairs, Van Raven waiting below—had so terribly shaken her composure, the composure of a prudent, resourceful woman of the world, that she was simply compelled to speak of private matters which she would never have mentioned before.... An instinct drove her into Constance’ arms, drove her to unbosom herself to Constance as the only one who could understand her. Her near-sighted, blinking eyes sought anxiously, through her tears, to read the expression on Constance’ face. And she was so broken, so shattered that Constance had to make an effort to realize that it was really Bertha whom she held in her arms.