Within a week the story of what had happened between them was all over Marken. Geert Thysen herself must have told what she had done. Certainly Krelis did not tell; and Marretje, having no one else to turn to, told only her grandfather. But various versions of the story went about the island, and the comment upon all of them by the Marken folk was the same: that Krelis had played the part of a coward in suffering such words to be spoken to his wife with never a word on his side of reply. Old Jaap, they say, blazed out into one of[38] his mad rages against his son-in-law. Some say that he then laid the curse upon him—but that never will be known certainly, for the bout between the two men took place when they were alone.  
What is known to be true is that Krelis for a while was as a man stunned; and that when he came to himself again—this was after the little Krelis was laid away in the graveyard—what love he had for Marretje was turned to an angry hatred because she had let his boy die. He said this not only to his neighbours but to Marretje herself—telling her that their child had died because she had borne it weakly into the world and had given it no strength with which to live.
 
Even a strong woman, being well-nigh heart-broken—as Marretje was when her baby was lost to her—could not have stood up against a blow like that. And Marretje, who was not a strong woman, felt the heart-breaking bitterness of what Krelis said because she knew that it was true. Very soon she was as feeble and as wan as the little Krelis had been. Happiness was no more for her, and she longed only for the forgetfulness of sorrow which would come to her when she should be as the little[39] Krelis was. And so her slight hold on life loosened quickly, and presently she and the little Krelis lay in the graveyard side by side.
 
She had a very nice funeral, so one of the old women in Marken told me: the best bier and the best pall were used, and the minister gave his best address—the one called "The Mourning Wreath"—at the grave. And, to end with, there was a breakfast in Jan de Jong's tavern that was of the best too. It was only just to Krelis, the old woman said, to say that in the matter of the funeral he behaved very well indeed.
 
But one thing which he did at that breakfast showed that it was for his own pride, and not for the sake of Marretje, that everything was done in so fine a style. On Marken there was left no near woman relative of Marretje's, and when the guests came to the table they were a good deal scandalized by finding that Geert Thysen was to be seated on Krelis's right hand. Old Jaap's place was on his left, but when the old man saw who was to take the seat on the right he drew back quickly from the table and left the room.
 
At that, for............