The trees had
scarcely begun to break into bud, for it had been a cold spring, and
the ice was floating lazily on the canal as Dorothy walked along its
bank. The Villa des Dunes was certainly somewhat lonely, standing as it
did a couple of hundred yards back from a sandy road--one of the many
leading from The Hague to Scheveningen. Between the villa and the road
the dunes had scarcely been molested, except indeed, to cut a narrow
roadway to the house. When Dorothy reached home, she found that her
brother had not yet returned. She looked at the clock. He was later
than usual. The malgamite works had during the last few weeks been
absorbing more and more of his attention. When he returned home, tired,
in the evening, he was not communicative. As for Otto von Holzen, he
never showed his face outside the works now, but seemed to live the
life of a recluse within the iron fence that surrounded the little
colony.
Percy Roden had not returned to the Villa des Dunes at the usual hour
because he had other work to do. Von Holzen and he were now standing in
one of the little huts in silence. The light of the setting sun glowed
through the window upon their faces, upon the bare walls of the room,
rendered barer and in no way beautified by a terrible German print
purporting to represent the features of Prince Bismarck.
Von Holzen stood, with his hands clasped behind his back, and looked
out of the window across the dreary dunes.
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