Note 10 — Chapter VII · [CONTINUATION OF STERN’S COMPOSITION.]

But there was nothing which she had to be forgiven. Without participating in the exaggerated ideas which she cherished about her Max, it appeared sufficiently evident that he had good prospects, and that, when these prospects were realized, the disagreeable consequences of his liberality would soon vanish. But yet another reason excused his apparent carelessness and hers. At an early age she had lost both parents, and had been educated by her father’s relatives. At the time of her marriage, they told her that she had a small fortune, which was accordingly handed over to her; but Havelaar discovered, from some letters of earlier date, and from some loose notes which she kept in a writing-desk that had belonged to her mother, that her family had been very rich; but he could not make out where, or how, this wealth had been lost. She, who had never herself taken any interest in money matters, could give little or no information on this subject. When Havelaar insisted upon some information concerning the former possessions of her family, he found that her grandfather, the Baron W., had emigrated with William VI.10 to England, and had been captain in the army of the Duke of York. It seemed that he had led a jolly life with the emigrant members of the Stadtholder’s household, which was considered by many to have occasioned the decline of his fortunes. He was afterwards killed at Waterloo, in a combat among the hussars of Boreel. The letters of her father, then a young man of eighteen, were touching to read,—as lieutenant of that corps, he had received in the same charge a sabre-cut on the head, from the consequences of which he died eight years afterwards in a state of madness,—letters to his mother, in which he lamented how he had sought in vain for his father’s corpse.