The clerk lifted a startled face.
“Latterly I have thought of it,” continued his master. “How the people hate me.… I never thought that I should be so hated.”
“Mynheer!—they are but fanatics——”
“Fanatics,” echoed John de Witt, with a sad smile. “They think I sell them to M. de Louvois.”
He pressed his hand to his heart as if he was wounded there.
“When they took this office from my predecessor Cats, he thanked God on his knees for removing such a heavy burden from him.… Well, he was never hated as I am.”
“Mynheer, it is but the vulgar who rail against you.”
John de Witt turned his full eyes on the secretary.
“It is the People,” he said mournfully. “The People of this Republic … if they trusted me I could save them yet … if they trusted me——”