The doctor, who had been away for his rounds, came back in the afternoon and inserted a tube in the father’s throat also. Ursula did not dare to question his solemnly sullen face.
One thought seemed chiefly to occupy Otto as he lay choking. He had written on a piece of paper—finding no rest till they gave it to him—the following words: “I must die before the child. Tell the doctor to make him live so long. Or kill me. Never Gerard, Ursula. Never, never. You first. For another Helmont!”
She had read the message in her deep distress, and understood it. Dutch law no longer admits entail. If Otto died childless, his mother and brother were his legal heirs. But Ursula would be heir to her fatherless son.
She clasped her husband’s hand in response to the hunger of his eyes, and when the doctor came she put the question which was straining through them.
“Doctor, he wants me to ask it. If—if this were to be fatal”—she went on bravely—“which do you think—first?”
“How do I know?” replied Dr. Lapperpap, roughly. “Pray to God for both. Both of them need your prayers.”
Once again Otto signified his wish to write, in the short-lived winter day.
“Never Gerard,” he scrawled. “You will help. By every means. Only not Gerard. Promise.”
She bowed her head, but he pressed his finger on the final word. In his dying eyes there was a passion of eagerness she could not resist. Promise! promise!
“I promise,” she said. And it grew slowly dark.