more children died, and more women were consumptive, and men fainted at their work. Do you reconcile that with God's good love? Oh, I find more hatred here in England than I knew even in Germany. It is cruel, unforgiving, unfair! You are proud of your own virtue, and hypocritical. God will be kinder to my people than to you, because now we cry out for His mercy, and you are still arrogant, with the name of God on your lips but a devil of pride in your hearts. I came here with my dear husband believing that many English would be like him, forgiving, hating cruelty, eager to heal the world's broken heart. You are not like him. You are cruel and lovers of cruelty, even to one poor German girl who came to you for shelter with her English man. I am sorry for you. I pity you because of your narrowness. I do not want to know you."
She stood up, swaying a little, with one hand on the mantelpiece, as afterwards she told her husband. She did not believe that she could cross the floor without falling. There was a strange dizziness in her head, and a mist before her eyes. But she held her head high and walked out of the drawing-room, and then upstairs. When Wickham Brand came back, she was lying on her bed, very ill. He sent for a doctor, who was with her for half-an-hour.
"She is very weak," he said. "No pulse to speak of. You will have to be careful of her. Deuced careful."
He gave no name to her illness. "Just weakness," he said. "Run down like a worn-out clock. Nerves all wrong, and no vitality."
He sent round a tonic, which Elsa took like a child, and for a little while it seemed to do her good. But Brand was frightened because her weakness had come back.
I am glad now that I had an idea which helped Brand
