Ursula paused. The Freule’s whole face quivered with pink excitement. Both her extended hands shook.
“I don’t understand, Aunt Louisa!” said Ursula, dizzily. “What is it?”
“Now, Ursula, don’t say that. You know how nervous money matters make me. And I’m afraid it was very foolish of me to give my money to Otto, and I didn’t ask it back, not even when you got it all.”
“It’s a good mortgage,” interrupted Ursula, “and, besides, you couldn’t ask it back.”
“Now don’t throw those law terms at my head,” cried the Freule, in a tremulous screech, “for I don’t know what they mean. But I do know that it’s very ungrateful of you to speak like that, Ursula, after what I’ve done for you all. And I left the money in your hands because I think you are strong, and altogether it is a very interesting experiment. But I must have my interest. I can’t do without my interest. Here’s my man of business writes that Noks has prepared him”—the Freule referred to the paper which crackled between her fingers—“for the possibility of there being some delay in the payment of the next instalment. Now, Ursula, I pay my board and wages punctually, and I can’t have that.”
“When is the next payment due?” asked Ursula.
“On the first of next month. Now, Ursula, don’t look like that. It is you who are to blame, not I. Never have I been twenty-four hours too late, though poor Theodore used to leave the money lying about for days. But your mother-in-law once truly said that, at any rate, you had this of royalty about you—you could do no wrong! Well, that is strong, and I have no objection. By-the-bye, your mother-in-law meant it ironically. But strong people should, above all, be honest, Ursula, and it’s dishonest to take advantage of the helplessness of a poor ignorant spinster like me.”
“You will have your interest,” said Ursula, by the stair-head, under the full glare of the lamp. “Noks was wrong.” And she went slowly down into the vestibule. She felt that she must get away for the moment from this suffocating house.
She took a hat and passed forth into the night. A cold little wind was curling in and out among the trees. Everywhere spread the grimness, the bare, black hardness of March, shrouded in darkness and indistinctly threatening. Ursula’s yearning went out, in this absolute solitude, to the husband whose strong love had lifted her up and placed her thus terribly high. Even a servant still heard his voice in its dying agony. Had she, then, the wife, already forgotten him? No, indeed; more closely than during his lifetime their existences were interwoven in her faithful fulfilment of his charge. She was possessed with a sudden foolish desire to hear that kind voice, that earnest voice again—aye, even the last gasp, as did Hephzibah. She hurried in the direction of the church-yard, of the vault where he lay. He had loved her—loved her, lifted her up—the simple village girl—to be my Lady Nobody. She wanted him again. She wanted him.