Then both smiled, and their hands pressed each other so tightly that on other occasions the girl would have cried out aloud.
The pastor’s wife meanwhile had looked incessantly at Elke’s eyes, which were now glowing like dark fire under the lace fringe of her little gold brocade cap. But in the growing noise at the table she had not understood a word; neither did she turn to her partner again, for she was accustomed not to disturb budding marriages-and this seemed to be such a case-if only for the sake of the promise of the wedding-fee for her husband, who did the marrying.
Elke’s presentiment had come true; one morning after Easter the dikemaster Tede Volkerts had been found dead in his bed. When one looked at his face, one could see written upon it that his end had been calm. In the las
