For awhile they thought that she did not know the extent of her misery, but presently she called for a quill and ink-horn, and took from her pocket Cornelius’ little brass-bound diary.
Over a clean page she had written the date, meaning to add beneath it her husband’s release. Very clearly and steadily she made now this entry, it ended the record of the Ruard’s domestic life, kept very carefully by him until his imprisonment—
“This day, August, my beloved husband was horribly murdered at the Hague by the burgher faction, with our brother, John de Witt.
“He was in his fiftieth year, having been forty-nine years old on June 19, 1672. He had been taken on the last day of July to the Court of Justice, and from thence, on August 6, to prison, there to be cruelly tortured on the sole accusation of an infamous person, Michael Tichelaer, barber of Piershill.
“May God preserve all men from such misfortunes as those by which the twentieth of this month has been so sorrowfully signalised.”
When she had finished she looked up with a wild air.
“Is it right?” she asked, “is it right?—we must submit to God!—all my happiness!”
Then she rose.
“Cornelius—you must snuff the candles——”
She sank on to the chair, smiling and unconscious.