"I never thought it would be Truide," she repeated to herself, as
she closed the door behind the last of the gay uniforms and jingling
scabbards. "And Jan is dead--ah, well!"

Then she went into the kitchen, where the miserable children--girls both
of them, and pretty had they been clean and less forlornly clad--were
playing about the stove.

"So Jan is dead," began Koosje, seating herself.

"Yes, Jan is dead," Truide answered.

"And he left you nothing?" Koosje asked.

"We had had nothing for a long time," Truide replied, in her sad,
crushed voice. "We didn't get on very well; he soon got tired of me."

"That was a weakness of his," remarked Koosje, drily.

"We lost five little ones, one after another," Truide continued. "And
Jan was fond of them, and somehow it seemed to sour him. As for me, I
was sorry enough at the time, Heaven knows, but it was as well. But Jan
said it seemed as if a curse had fallen upon us; he began to wish you
back again, and to blame me for having come between you. And then he
took to _genever_, and then to wish for something stronger; so at last
every stiver went for absinthe, and once or twice he beat me, and then
he died."

"Just as well," muttered Koosje, under her breath.