"'I'll tell you in ten minutes.' replied the doctor. 'But if you make any more noise you'll kill her, mind that.'
"The Predikant went with him to the stoop, and stayed there while the doctor returned to the bedside. At the end of an interval he was out again, and took the husband by the arm.
"'It's over,' he said. 'She's doing finely. Sleeping like a child. You can thank God now, Mynheer Mostert.'
"The Predikant stared at him dumbly.
"'Thank God, did you say?' he asked at last.
"'And me,' answered the doctor, smiling.
"'I do thank you,' answered the Predikant. 'I do thank you from my heart, doctor. But for the rest—'
"And here, with a voice as even as one who speaks on the traffic of every day, with a calm face, he poured forth an awful, a soul-wracking blasphemy.
"'Here!' cried the doctor, startled. 'Draw the line somewhere, Predikant. That sort of thing won't do at all, you know.'
"'Now let me see my wife,' said the Predikant; and after a while, when he had warned him very solemnly on the need for silence, the doctor took him in and showed him Paula, thin and shorn, sleeping with level breath. The Predikant looked on her with parted lips and clenched hands, and when he was outside again he turned to the doctor.