Eldersma had already gone, sick almost unto death; and Eva had been unable to accompany him, with the little boy, because she was down with a bad attack of malarial fever. When she was more or less convalescent, she sold up her house, with a view to going to Batavia and staying there for three weeks with friends before her boat sailed. She left Labuwangi with mixed feelings. She had suffered much there, but had also reflected much; and she had cherished a deep feeling for Van Helderen, a pure, radiant feeling such as could, she was sure, shine forth only once in a lifetime. She took leave of him as of an ordinary friend, in the presence of others, and gave him no more than a pressure of the hand. But she felt so profoundly sad because of that pressure of the hand, that commonplace farewell, that the sobs rose in her throat. That evening, left to herself, she did not weep, but sat in her room at the hotel, staring for hours silently before her. Her husband was gone, was ill: she did not know how he would be when she saw him, whether indeed she would ever see him again. Europe, it was true, after her years in India, stretched its shores smilingly before her, held forth the vision of its cities, its culture, its art; but she was afraid of Europe. An unspoken fear lest she should have lost ground intellectually made her almost dread the circle in her parents' house, to which she would have returned in a month's time. She trembled at the thought that people would consider her colonial in her manners and ideas, in her speech and dress, in the education of her child; and this made her feel shy in anticipation, despite all her pose as a smart, artistic woman. Certainly she no longer played the piano as well as she did; she would not dare to play at the Hague. And she thought that it might be a good thing to stay in Paris for a fortnight and brush off her cobwebs a little, before showing herself in the Hague.... But Eldersma was too ill.... And how would she find him, her husband, so much changed, her once robust Frisian husband, now tired out, worn out, yellow as parchment, careless of his appearance, muttering gloomily when he spoke?... But a gentle vision of a refreshing German landscape, of Swiss snows, of music at Bayreuth, of art in Italy dawned before her staring gaze; and she was herself reunited to her sick husband. No longer united in life, but united under the yoke of life, the yoke which they had shouldered together, once and for all.... Then there was the education of her child! Oh, to save her child, to get him away from India! And yet he, Van Helderen, had never been out of India. But then he was himself, he was an exception.... She had bidden him good-bye.... She must make up her mind to forget him.... Europe was waiting for her ... with her husband ... and her child....