"What is the matter, then, that you are crying? And why into the dark
room go you?"

"Full of sorrow I am, mother, and I went to the room to pray to God; but
I cannot pray."

"'Full of sorrow.' Yes, for that Englishman you are full of sorrow. And
how can you pray when you are disobeying your good father? God will not
hear you."

The mother was not pitiless; but she was anxious and troubled, and
Katherine's grief irritated her at the moment. "Go and tell Dinorah to
bring in the tea. The work of the house must go on," she muttered. "And
I think, that it was Saturday night Joris might have remembered."

Then she went back to Joanna, and stood with her, looking through the
gray mist down the road, and feeling even the croaking of the frogs and
the hum of the insects to be an unusual provocation. Just as Dinorah
said, "The tea is served, madam," the large figure of Batavius loomed
through the gathering grayness; and the women waited for him. He came up
the steps without his usual greeting; and his face was so injured and
portentous that Joanna, with a little cry, put her arms around his neck.
He gently removed them.

"No time is this, Joanna, for embracing. A great disgrace has come to
the family; and I, who have always stood up for morality, must bear it
too."

"Disgrace! The word goes not with our name, Batavius; and what mean you,
then? In one word, speak."