“It wasn’t in reason,” as she afterward said to Hans, “to wait any longer, when a word from the father would settle all. No woman living but would want to know how he came by that watch.” Raff Brinker turned the bright polished thing over and over in his hand, then he examined the bit of smoothly ironed black ribbon fastened to it. He seemed hardly to recognize it. At last he said, “Ah, I remember this! Why, you’ve been rubbing it, vrouw, till it shines like a new guilder.” “Aye,” said Dame Brinker, nodding her head complacently. Raff looked at it again. “Poor boy!” he murmured, then fell into a brown study. This was too much for the dame. “‘Poor boy!’” she echoed, somewhat tartly. “What do you think I’m standing here for, Raff Brinker, and my spinning awaiting, if not to hear more than that?” “I told ye all, long since,” said Raff positively as he looked up in surprise. “Indeed, and you never did!” retorted the vrouw. “Well, if not, since it’s no affair of ours, we’ll say no more about it,” said Raff, shaking his head sadly. “Like enough while I’ve been dead on the earth, all this time, the poor boy’s died and been in heaven. He looked near enough to it, poor lad!” “Raff Brinker! If you’re going to treat me this way, and I nursing you and bearing with you since I was twenty-two years old, it’s a shame. Aye, and a disgrace,” cried the vrouw, growing quite red and scant of breath. Raff’s voice was feeble yet. “Treat you WHAT way, Meitje?” “What way,” said Dame Brinker, mimicking his voice and manner. “What way? Why, just as every woman in the world is treated after she’s stood by a man through the worst, like a--” “Meitje!” Raff was leaning forward with outstretched arms. His eyes were full of tears. In an instant Dame Brinker was at his feet, clasping his hands in hers. “Oh, what have I done! Made my good man cry, and he not back with me four days! Look up, Raff! Nay, Raff, my own boy, I’m sorry I hurt thee. It’s hard not to be told about the watch after waiting ten years to know, but I’ll ask thee no more, Raff. Here, we’ll put the thing away that’s made the first trouble between us, after God just gave thee back to me.” “I was a fool to cry, Meitje,” he said, kissing her, “and it’s no more than right that ye should know the truth. But it seemed as if it might be telling the secrets of the dead to talk about the matter.” “Is the man--the lad--thou wert talking of dead, think thee?” asked the vrouw, hiding the watch in her hand but seating herself expectantly on the end of his long foot bench. “It’s hard telling,” he answered. “Was he so sick, Raff?” “No, not sick, I may say; but troubled, vrouw, very troubled.” “Had he done wrong, think ye?” she asked, lowering her voice. Raff nodded. “MURDER?” whispered the wife, not daring to look up. “He said it was like to that, indeed.” “Oh! Raff, you frighten me. Tell me more, you speak so strange and you tremble. I must know all.”