and
shuddered. Then she spoke, asking:

"Why do you bring this man to me, Martin?"

"For judgment, Lysbeth van Goorl," he answered.

"Who made me a judge over him?" she asked.

"My master, Dirk van Goorl, your son, Adrian, and Hendrik Brant. Their
blood makes you judge of his blood."

"I will have none of it," Lysbeth said passionately, "let the people
judge him." As she spoke, from the crowd in the street below there
swelled a sudden clamour.

"Good," said Martin, "the people shall judge," and he began to turn
towards the window, when suddenly, by a desperate effort, Ramiro
wrenched his doublet from his hand, and flung himself at Lysbeth's feet
and grovelled there.

"What do you seek?" she asked, drawing back her dress so that he should
not touch it.

"Mercy," he gasped.

"Mercy! Look, son and daughter, this man asks for mercy who for many a
year has given none. Well, Juan de Montalvo, take your prayer to God and
to the people. I have done with you."

"Mercy, mercy!" he cried again.

"Eight months ago," she said, "I uttered that prayer to you, begging of
you in the Name of Christ to spare the life of an innocent man, and what
was your answer, Juan de Montalvo?"

"Once you were my wife," he pleaded; "being a woman, does not that weigh
with you?"

"Once he was my husband, being a man did that weigh with you? The last
word is said. Take him, Martin, to those who deal with murderers."

Then that look came upon Montalvo which twice or thrice before Lysbeth
has seen written in his face--once when the race was run and lost, and
once when in after years she had petitioned for the life of her husband.
Lo! it was no longer the face of a man, but such a countenance as might
have been worn by a devil or a beast. The eyeball started, the grey
moustache curled upwards, the cheek-bones grew high and sharp.

"Night after night," he gasped, "you lay at my side, and I might have
killed you, as I have killed that brat of yours--and I spared you, I
spared you."

"God spared me, Juan de Montalvo, that He might bring us to this hour;
let Him spare you also if He will. I do not judge. He judges and the
people," and Lysbeth rose from her chair.

"Stay!" he cried, gnashing his teeth.

"No, I stay not, I go to receive the last breath of him you have
murdered, my son and yours."

He raised himself upon his knees, and for a moment their eyes met for
the last time.

"Do you remember?" she said in a quiet voice, "many y