“Of course it’s true.”
Hephzibah began moving away.
“If you go in there, Mevrouw,” she said, “perhaps you’ll hear it to-night. It’s groaning and gasping worse than ever to-night.”
She ran down the long passage.
“O Lord! O Lord, have mercy!” she murmured. “I’ve done what I could to make amends. I thought, after what I’d done, I should never hear it again. O Lord, I’m not a bad woman! There’s those sit in high places is a great deal worse than me.”
“The creature is crazy,” said Ursula, aloud, as she pushed open the door of the antechamber.
In the inner room all was dark and still. Ursula shut herself in, and sank down by the bed.
“Otto, I have done my best,” she said.
An immense weight of guilt lay upon her. Gerard was grievously wounded, was dying; perhaps already dead. Who could tell what was happening out yonder, in the fatal sun-blaze? Before a message could be flashed across the waters his body would already lie rotting in the red-hot ground. And his soul, for all she knew, might be standing, even now, by her side.
“Gerard, I have done it for the best,” she whispered.