“No, I don’t. Not after—Nevertheless, repentance comes too late. I’m not as bad as other people, but I’m doomed to be unhappy; privileged, I should say.”
“You can go,” said Ursula.
Hephzibah turned by the door.
“Why don’t you marry the Jonker?” she began, suddenly; “I know he loves you. He loved you when he didn’t ought to, and I know he loves you still.”
“Peace, woman!” exclaimed Ursula, rising fiercely. “The Jonker does not love me, nor I him. Go you, and marry your clod.”
A few hours later, as Ursula was sitting alone, thinking—“Why,” asks Freule Louisa, “does Ursula always sit thinking, since her inheritance came? Is she counting up her money? Oh, fie!”—as Ursula sat alone thinking, a stone flew suddenly through her open window, alighting almost at her feet. It had a paper attached to it, and the paper bore these words:
“Beware of Adeline Skiff and her husband. They will work your downfall, if they can.”
She turned the paper over and over. She had no doubt that it came from Hephzibah, whom she—and the world generally—believed to be mildly crazy. She knew that Hephzibah had suspicions regarding many things, but she also had always known these to be harmless. Nobody would attach any importance to Hephzibah’s mutterings.
Ursula smiled sadly.
The paper lay in her lap. And now, unexpectedly, as she gazed down, a great fear fell upon her, she could not have told whence. For the first time she was frightened, afraid of a secret enemy, afraid of discovery, exposure. Who was this man Skiff, the notary’s clerk? What did he know? What could he do? She started up.