Cornelius de Witt clenched his hand on the coverlet.
“I had better have died,” he murmured.
His wife came and bent over his pillow.
“Do you blame me?” she asked, shuddering. “Ah, you think that I have been weak.”
“No,” he answered, “there were the children … but nothing can save us, Maria.”
“They have gone,” she breathed.
“Yes, now,” he answered mournfully; “but what can protect us, John and me, against the whole country’s hate?”
She cried out passionately—
“They cannot hate you—it is impossible!”
He leant back exhausted.