row, breaks his poor mother's heart. . . . He writes about America. . . . Addie went straight to the station to make enquiries. He was going on to Rotterdam. Addie . . . Addie never has a moment's peace. . . . He was looking tired as it was, tired and sad; and, instead of having a day's rest . . . with us . . . with all of us . . . I wanted to go with him . . . but he said he preferred to go alone. . . . Why not have told Addie . . . that he would rather do something else . . . than go into the Post Office? . . . God, we'd have been glad enough to help him! . . . He—Addie—does everything . . . does every blessed thing for the children. . . . Oh, Brauws, it's as if a son of my own had run away . . . run away in a fit of madness! . . . Addie has gone to Rotterdam. It was Addie's idea, Rotterdam. But Guy can just as well have gone to Antwerp, to Le Havre, to God knows where! . . . He hadn't much money with him. . . . What will he do, what were his plans? . . ."
The sunny summer day passed gloomily: just a telegram from Addie, "Coming to-morrow," without any further explanation. Constance had found the strength to go to Adeline in her room; the girls were overcome with a silent stupefaction, at the thought that Guy, their cheerful Guy, kept so much hidden under his light-heartedness: a deeper dissatisfaction with life, vague and unclear to all of them, who were so happy to be with Uncle Henri and Aunt Constance in what had so long been their family house, since they had been quite small children; and, when Alex arrived in the evening from Amsterdam, he too could not understand why Guy had felt a need so suddenly to go away from all of them, without taking leave, with that queer idea of making his way in the world alone. . . . On the
