Presently Ursula came through the intervening door into the nursery. Hephzibah looked up.
“Mevrouw,” she said, “it’s no use trying to deceive you. The baby is dying. It can’t last many minutes. It’s the Lord’s doing. Blessed be the terrible name of the Lord!”
Ursula knelt down and calmly kissed the little congested forehead. What did the danger matter? Perhaps she was courting death.
Then she went back to her husband, and gazed deeply upon his terrible struggle. She could do nothing to help him. But she felt that this agony, also, was approaching its end.
Hephzibah knocked gently. “Mevrouw,” she whispered, “Mevrouw, it is over. The poor little thing is at rest.”
Some moments elapsed before Ursula appeared. Then her face stood out, in the dusk, hard and set.
“Go down-stairs,” she said. “Go away, and leave me alone with my dead.” She pushed forth the waiting-woman, and locked the nursery door behind her. For a moment she waited by the cot; then she returned to the inner room. It was now quite dark. A quick shuffling made itself heard in the passage. Somebody tried the lock. Ursula took no notice.
Half an hour later she opened the door and passed out into the hall. An oil-lamp was burning there. She shaded her eyes from its glare.
On the staircase she met Aunt Louisa. “Come into the dining-room, aunt,” she said. “There is something I must tell you.” She sank down on the nearest chair, by the glitter of the untouched dinner-table. “Dearest Aunt Louisa,” she said, “you mustn’t mind too much. God has taken Otto to Himself. And—and He has taken baby also.”