The Wrath of the Zuyder Zee by Thomas A. Janvier

It was a little past the turn of the half-year after the wedding that the prophets of evil pricked up their ears hopefully -- as there began to go humming through Marken a soft buzz of talk about the carryings on of Geert Thysen and Krelis Kess. It was only vague talk, to be sure; but then when talk of that sort is vague there is the more seaway for speculation and inference. All sorts of rumours went flashing about -- and carried the more weight, perhaps, because they could not be traced to a starting-point and were disavowed by each person who passed them on. The sum of them became quite amazing before long!

In the end, of course, this talk worked around to Marretje. Bit by bit, one kind friend after another brought her variations of the same budget of news, pleading their friendship for her as the excuse for their chattering; and all of them were a good deal disconcerted by the placid way, with scarcely a word of comment, in which she suffered them to talk on. Only when they took to saying harsh things about Krelis did they rouse her a little. Then she would stop them shortly, and with a quiet insistence that put them in an awkward corner, by asking them to remember that it was her husband whom they were talking about, and that what they were saying was not fit for his wife to hear. This line of rejoinder was disconcerting to her interlocutors. To be put in the wrong, that way, while performing for conscience' sake a very unpleasant duty, could not but arouse resentment. Presently it began to be said that Marretje was a poor-spirited thing upon whom friendly sympathy was thrown away.