his temper
was always fierce, and who pays any heed to the talk of a man in a mad
passion?"

"Why did you let your brother be thus treated, cousin Foy?" broke in
Elsa quivering with indignation. "It was cowardly of you to stand still
and see that great red creature crush the life out of him when you know
well that it was because of your taunts that he lost his temper and said
things that he did not mean, as I do myself sometimes. No, I will
never speak to you again--and only this afternoon he saved me from the
robbers!" and she burst into weeping.

"Peace, peace! this is no time for angry words," said the Pastor Arentz,
pushing his way through the group of bewildered men and overwrought
women. "He can scarcely be dead; let me look at him, I am something of
a doctor," and he knelt by the senseless and bleeding Adrian to examine
him.

"Take comfort, Vrouw van Goorl," he said presently, "your son is not
dead, for his heart beats, nor has his friend Martin injured him in any
way by the exercise of his strength, but I think that in his fury he has
burst a blood-vessel, for he bleeds fast. My counsel is that he should
be put to bed and his head cooled with cold water till the surgeon can
be fetched to treat him. Lift him in your arms, Martin."

So Martin carried Adrian, not to the street, but to his bed, while Foy,
glad of an excuse to escape the undeserved reproaches of Elsa and the
painful sight of his mother's grief, went to seek the physician. In due
course he returned with him, and, to the great relief of all of them,
the learned man announced that, notwithstanding the blood which he had
lost, he did not think that Adrian would die, though, at the best, he
must keep his bed for some weeks, have skilful nursing and be humoured
in all things.

While his wife Lysbeth and Elsa were attending to Adrian, Dirk and his
son, Foy, for the Pastor Arentz had gone, sat upstairs talking in the
sitting-room, that same balconied chamber in which once Dirk had been
refused while Montalvo hid behind the curtain. Dirk was much disturbed,
for when his wrath had passed he was a tender-hearted man, and his
stepson's plight distressed him greatly. Now he was justifying himself
to Foy, or, rather, to his own conscience.

"A man who could speak so of his own mother, was not fit to stop in the
same house with her," he said; "moreover, you heard his words about the
pastor. I tell you, son, I am afraid of this Adrian."

"Unless that bleed