Laurentia heaved a deep sigh. “We shall have but very little time to get her things ready,” said she. The remark itself and still more the way she made it, showed plainly enough that the bother of this sudden departure touched her much more nearly than the separation from her child.
“Oh! mother,” said Anna as quietly as possible, “pray leave all that entirely to me. I shall be quite ready to start to-morrow, as early as ever you please.”
“Do you intend her to stay long with the Steenvlaks?” asked Laurentia.
“That will very much depend upon herself,” was van Gulpendam’s reply. “I don’t want to see her face again, unless she consents to return in a much more submissive mood, and is prepared to behave in a dutiful and becoming manner to her parents.”
As he uttered these words, van Gulpendam glanced at his daughter hoping—perhaps expecting—that he might detect in her some signs of relenting. But, though she was deadly pale, Anna did not betray the feelings which were stirring within her. On her placid features there was no trace either of irresolution or of defiance; there was nothing but quiet determination and settled purpose.
“You have, I presume,” continued the Resident, “well weighed and thoroughly understood what I said?” He rose and prepared to go to his office.
“Certainly, father, I have understood you perfectly. To-morrow morning I leave this house never to set foot in it again. Even if you had not so decided, I myself would have insisted upon an immediate separation.”
“Oh, ho! Does the wind sit in that quarter? And pray, may I be allowed to ask my proud and independent daughter what plans she may have formed for the future? She surely must be aware that she cannot quarter herself for an indefinite period of time upon the Steenvlaks?”
Van Gulpendam, as he put the question, assumed a tone and manner in the highest degree offensive and taunting.
But Anna would not allow herself to be ruffled and, in the calmest possible way she replied: