, lady, from the bandits of the wood."

"I would you might," she replied, smiling sadly at the double meaning of
the words, "but, hark, your mother is calling us. I know, Heer Adrian,"
she added gently, "that you will understand and respect my dreadful
anxiety, and will not trouble me again with poetry and love-talk, for if
you do I shall be--angry."

"Lady," he answered, "your wishes are my law, and until these clouds
have rolled from the blue heaven of your life I will be as silent as the
watching moon. And, by the way," he added rather nervously, "perhaps
you will be silent also--about our talk, I mean, as we do not want that
buffoon, Foy, thrusting his street-boy fun at us."

Elsa bowed her head. She was inclined to resent the "we" and other
things in this speech, but, above all, she did not wish to prolong this
foolish and tiresome interview, so, without more words, she took her
admirer by the hand and guided him down the stairs.

It was but three days after this ridiculous scene, on a certain
afternoon, when Adrian had been out for the second time, that the
evil tidings came. Dirk had heard them in the town, and returned home
well-nigh weeping. Elsa saw his face and knew at once.

"Oh! is he dead?" she gasped.

He nodded, for he dared not trust himself to speak.

"How? Where?"

"In the Poort prison at The Hague."

"How do you know?"

"I have seen a man who helped to bury him."

She looked up as though to ask for further details, but Dirk turned away
muttering, "He is dead, he is dead, let be."

Then she understood, nor did she ever seek to know any more. Whatever he
had suffered, at least now he was with the God he worshipped, and with
the wife he lost. Only the poor orphan, comforted by Lysbeth, crept from
the chamber, and for a week was seen no more. When she appeared again
she seemed to be herself in all things, only she never smiled and was
very indifferent to what took place about her. Thus she remained for
many days.

Although this demeanour on Elsa's part was understood and received with
sympathy and more by the rest of the household, Adrian soon began to
find it irksome and even ridiculous. So colossal was this young man's
vanity that he was unable quite to understand how a girl could be so
wrapped up in the memories of a murdered father, that no place was left
in her mind for the tendernesses of a present adorer. After all, this
father, what was he? A middle-aged and, doubtless, quite