flashed strange premonitions and presentiments; and, since she had been to Driebergen, in response to the old woman's dying summons, she could no longer free herself from this haunting dread, as though it were all a magic web in which she was caught. Oh, what could be threatening, now that the old woman yonder was dead? What sort of change would come looming up, day after day, gloomy day after gloomy day, in her small life, in the small lives around her? . . . For herself, in the late aftermath of life, she had found a tiny grain of true philosophy—small, oh, so small, but very precious!—and she did not think of herself, because she believed that what might still come, in her own life, she would be able to bear philosophically. Sometimes even, at such times, she would think of the worst that could happen to her: if Addie were suddenly to die. In that case, perhaps, in that case alone, the grain would not be sufficient to enable her to bear it with philosophy. . . . But, for the rest . . . for the rest, she was no longer afraid of life. And yet what were these vague terrors which chilled her soul, which enveloped her nowadays in that magic web of anxious speculation concerning the future? Would she be involved or would others? Was it illness . . . money trouble . . . an accident . . . a catastrophe . . . or was it death? . . . Was it to do with Addie . . . or was it to do with her mother? Oh,
