“The brougham,” she repeated. “Tell Piet to get it ready as soon as possible. I am going far.”
“Your nobleness is not hurt?” he stammered.
“No, no. Be quick.” She hastily found a hat and mantle—she had recently laid aside her mourning—and then waited till the carriage was announced.
“To the notary,” she said. “Tell Mevrouw that I shall not be back till late.”
Mynheer Noks lived some way out, on the farther side of Horstwyk. The coachman, unaccustomed to any sudden orders, whipped up his horse in surly surprise, and reflected on the chances of meeting the steam-tram.
His mistress did not think of the steam-tram to-day, often as she recalled, in passing it, her wild drive with Otto, and Beauty’s cruel death. To-day she sat motionless in the little close carriage, watching the lamps go flashing across the road-side trees in a weary monotony of change.
“If it had killed me!” that was all her thought. She had never realized till this moment the possibility of immediate death. There would always be time, she had reasoned, for final arrangements, death-bed scenes. People did not die without an illness, however sudden. Besides, when she had risen from the long prostration of her early widowhood, “God has not permitted me to die,” she had said. “He knew I had a mission to fulfil.”
And now—supposing she had never regained consciousness?
She saw the lights of Horstwyk pass by, and wondered if she should never reach the notary’s, and reproached herself for her foolishness.
“The notary is in?” she asked, eagerly, at his door.