Page:Augusta Seaman--Jacqueline of the carrier pigeons.djvu/157

Rh her tossing form lay quiet. Jacqueline buried her face in her hands and wept with sheer bitterness and despair.

“Oh, Vrouw Voorhaas, Vrouw Voorhaas!—now I know what doth ail thee!” she sobbed aloud. “Thou hast starved thyself for our sakes, thou didst deceive us into  thinking thou wast satisfied with a little, and  now thou art reaping the results of thy sacrifice!” The realization that this faithful servant had brought herself to this pass by her  own self-denial, occupied Jacqueline’s mind  to the exclusion of every other thought. “How wicked and ungrateful I have been,” she blamed herself, “going out to nurse other  people, when starvation and illness lay waiting right at my own door, and I never  guessed! Oh, if Gysbert were only here!”

Then the necessity for doing something, and that speedily, forced itself upon her. Deciding that she could leave the sick woman more easily now than later, she ran out at  once to find Dr. de Witt. He accompanied