, like some unnamable disgrace! No, that was a
thing which she could never forgive, never, never, never!

She was so deep in her thoughts that she did not notice that the train
had stopped and that they had arrived at Zeist-Driebergen.

"Mamma!" said Addie, softly.

She started, turned pale. But she was resolved to control herself, to be
dignified, to show those old people that she was not a worthless woman,
even though she had committed a mistake, a false step in her life: very
well, a sin, if they pleased, because she had loved. Addie helped her to
alight; and her gloved fingers trembled in his firm little hand. But she
was resolved not to give way: she must keep quite calm; yes, she would
be calm and dignified above all....

"There's the carriage," said Henri, in a stifled voice.

He recognized the very old carriage of years ago. He even recognized the
old coachman, who looked at him and touched his hat. The footman who
opened the carriage-door was a youth, whom he did not know. And the
coachman, as an old servant, bent over to him and, in a quavering voice,
using the old title, said:

"Morning, jonker. Good-morning, mevrouw."

"How are you, Dirk?" said Henri, in a dull voice.

They settled themselves in the carriage. And Constance saw that Henri
was setting his lips, gritting his teeth and clenching his jaws, as
though with a violent effort to stop himself from crying like a child.
Now and then he shivered, nervously, and stared out of the window. He
recognized the villas on either side of the road, looking so melancholy
in the middle of the bleak March gardens that stretched hazily in the
damp mist; he noticed how much had been pulled down to make way for new
houses. How changed it was! What a lot had been built lately! But yet
there was something under those great cloudy skies, heavy with eternal
rain, in that road, in the gardens of those villas: something of the old
days, something of his childhood, something of the time when he was
young. He felt like an old man coming home again: he, scarcely
eight-and-thirty! It was as though he were ashamed in the presence of
the familiar! And, very secretly, too weak to accuse himself, he accused
her, the woman sitting beside him, the woman four years older than
himself. He too was thinking of Rome now, of the rooms of the
Netherlands Legation, of her, then Mrs. de Staffelaer, the wife of his
chief, of their love-affair, first in jest, then in earnest, until that
t