je brought her some circulars, letters and bills from
the letter-box, Constance' eye fell upon a newspaper in a wrapper; and
she opened it. She read the title of the little sheet: the
_Dwarskijker;_[22] and, as she seldom received much by post, she thought
that it must have been sent as an advertisement. Suddenly, however, she
remembered: the _Dwarskijker_ was an odious little weekly paper edited
by a disreputable individual who pried into all the secrets of the great
Hague families; who had often been tried for blackmail, but always
managed to escape; and who as constantly resumed his vile trade, because
the families whom he attacked paid hush-money, whether his attacks were
based on truth or calumny. Constance was about to tear up the paper
indignantly, when her eye caught the name of Van Aghel, a parody
obviously meant for Van Naghel, and she could not help reading on. She
then read a nasty little article against her brother-in-law, the
colonial secretary, an article crammed with personal attacks on Van
Naghel, describing him as a great nonentity, who had made money at the
bar in India by means of a shady Chinese practice and had been shoved on
in his career by a still greater and more pompous nonentity, his
father-in-law, the ex-Governor-general "Van Leeuwen." The article next
attacked Van Naghel's brother, the Queen's Commissary in Overijssel,
and, in conclusion, it promised, in a subsequent issue of the
_Dwarskijker_ to give a glimpse into the immorality of the other
relations of this _bourgeois_ who had battened on the Chinese and who
had rendered no real service to India. And the writer aimed very
pointedly at Mrs. van Naghel's sister, another woman moving in those
exalted circles whose end would soon be nigh in the better order of
things at hand: she was described as the "ex-ambassadress;" and he wound
up with the alluring promise to give, next week, full details of those
old stories, which were always interesting because they afforded the
reader a peep into the depravity of aristocratic society.

Constance, as she read on, felt her heart beating, the blood rushing to
her cheeks; her hands trembled, her knees shook, she felt as though she
were about to faint. She was growing accustomed to oral slander; but
these written, printed articles, which everybody could read, came as a
shock to her; and, with eyes starting from their sockets, she read the
thing over and over again. She was filled with helpless despair at