Gerard, opening his envelope, extracted a bank-note for one thousand florins.
When the younger son had sailed away, with his strange new uniform, to the land of falling cocoanuts and cannon-balls, the waves of emotion at the Manor-house settled down into a disagreeable ground-swell. Otto had made up his mind to “forgive and forget,” a combination foredoomed to failure; Ursula walked straight on by her husband’s side, with a gloved hand in his. It was useless to talk about forgetting. She would never do that. Not as long as a proud woman’s heart beat under her wifely bosom. With scrupulous tenderness she smoothed the daily deepening furrows upon the Baron’s careworn brow.
And the months passed on, exceedingly like each other, excepting that Baron Otto made himself fresh enemies with every fresh act of justice. He was stern, and, necessarily, stingy. It was true that his honest impulse to discuss his suspicions with Ursula’s father had cost him the last friend he possessed in Horstwyk. He clung the more tenaciously to his life’s object. And he idolized his child.
On this point, at least, there could be sympathy between husband and wife. Little Otto was querulous over his infantine troubles. He disliked teething, and going to sleep, and cold water, and hot water, and eczema. He did not take kindly to existence. It is that class of children which, universally forsaken, hang on, by the nails, to their parents’ hearts. There was no danger of Ursula’s heart becoming atrophied. In one thing she did not obey her husband; she slipped in and out among the poor a great deal more than Otto knew.
But, having no money, she came with empty hands, and her visits were rarely appreciated, except by the purely imaginary poor person, who thought a glimpse of her bonnie face better than a sixpence any day.
Winter was coming round again when Otto one morning received a letter from a person who signed herself “Adeline Skiff.” The person spoke of great wrongs she had suffered from Gerard, of present distress, and of possible assistance. Otto had never heard of Adeline Skiff, but with his usual thoroughness he took the next train to Drum, and unexpectedly called upon the lady. He knew her again when he saw her, although she was very much changed.
Adeline lived in a blind alley, among odds and ends. She was the only inhabitant who wore a fringe, and this fact afforded her daily satisfaction. Otherwise, her reputation was dubious, and her slovenliness undoubted.
She received the Baron in a small front room, filled by a sewing-machine and two children. She hastened to explain that her husband, who was not over-kind to her, had lost his last place in a lawyer’s office on account of his stubborn integrity; she got a little dress-making, not much; she had hoped that Mynheer the Baron might be moved to do something for her or her children. She pushed forward two dirty-faced boys; Otto started, involuntarily, at sight of the elder. Adeline smiled knowingly.