As soon as the door closed, the young girl sank back into her chair, pressed her forehead against the marble slab and let it remain there a long time.  Then she rose as suddenly and hastily as if obeying some urgent summons, raised the lid of her trunk, tossed the stockings, bodices and shoes, that came into her way, out on the floor, and did not rise until she had found a few sheets of writing-paper which she had laid, before leaving her father’s castle, among the rest of her property.

As she rose from her kneeling posture, she was seized with giddiness, but still kept her feet, carried to the table first the white sheets and a portfolio, then the large inkstand that had already stood several days in her room, and seated herself beside it.

Leaning far back in her chair, she began to write.  The book that served as a desk lay on her knee, the paper on the book.  Creaking and pausing, the goosequill made large, stiff letters on the white surface.  Henrica was not skilled in writing, but to-day it must have been unspeakably difficult for her; her high forehead became covered with perspiration, her mouth was distorted by pain, and whenever she had finished a few lines, she closed her eyes or drank greedily from the water-pitcher that stood beside her.

The large room was perfectly still, but the peace that surrounded her was often disturbed by strange noises and tones, that rose from the dining-hall directly under her chamber.  The clinking of glasses, shrill tittering, loud, deep laughter, single bars of a dissolute love-song, cheers, and then the sharp rattle of a shattered wine glass reached her in mingled sounds.  She did not wish to hear it, but could not escape and clenched her white teeth indignantly.  Yet meantime the pen did not wholly stop.

She wrote in broken, or long, disconnected sentences, almost incoherently involved.  Sometimes there were gaps, sometimes the same word was twice or thrice repeated.  The whole resembled a letter written by a lunatic, yet every line, every stroke of the pen, expressed the same desire uttered with passionate longing:  “Take me away from here!  Take me away from this woman and this house!”

The epistle was addressed to her father.  She implored him to rescue her from this place, come or send for her.  “Her uncle, Matanesse Van Wibisma,” she said, “seemed to be a sluggish messenger; he had probably enjoyed the evenings at her aunt’s, which filled her, Henrica, with loathing.  She would go out into the world after her sister, if her father compelled her to stay here.”  Then she began a description of her aunt and her life.  The picture of the days and nights she had now spent for weeks with the old lady, presented in vivid characters a mixture of great and petty troubles, external and mental humiliations.