anst do for him now."

Giles had left them, and all was sad and silent again, when a
well-dressed man opened the door softly, and asked was Margaret Brandt
here.

"D'ye hear, lass? You are wanted," said Catherine briskly. In her the
Gossip was indestructible.

"Well, mother," said Margaret listlessly, "and here I am."

A shuffling of feet was heard at the door, and a colourless, feeble old
man was assisted into the room. It was Ghysbrecht Van Swieten. At
sight of him Catherine shrieked, and threw her apron over her head, and
Margaret shuddered violently, and turned her head swiftly away, not to
see him.

A feeble voice issued from the strange visitor's lips, "Good people, a
dying man hath come to ask your forgiveness."

"Come to look on your work, you mean," said Catherine, taking down her
apron and bursting out sobbing. "There, there, she is fainting; look to
her, Eli, quick."

"Nay," said Margaret, in a feeble voice, "the sight of him gave me a
turn, that is all, Prithee, let him say his say, and go; for he is the
murderer of me and mine."

"Alas," said Ghysbrecht, "I am too feeble to say it standing and no one
biddeth me sit down."

Eli, who had followed him into the house, interfered here, and said,
half sullenly, half apologetically, "Well, burgomaster, 'tis not our
wont to leave a visitor standing whiles we sit. But man, man, you have
wrought us too much ill." And the honest fellow's voice began to shake
with anger he fought hard to contain, because it was his own house.

Then Ghysbrecht found an advocate in one who seldom spoke in vain in
that family.

It was little Kate. "Father, mother," said she, "my duty to you, but
this is not well. Death squares all accounts, And see you not death in
his face? I shall not live long, good friends; and his time is shorter
than mine."

Eli made haste and set a chair for their dying enemy with his own hands.
Ghysbrecht's attendants put him into it. "Go fetch the boxes," said he.
They brought in two boxes, and then retired, leaving their master alone
in the family he had so cruelly injured.

Every eye was now bent on him, except Margaret's. He undid the boxes
with unsteady fingers, and brought out of one the title-deeds of a
property at Tergou. "This land and these houses belonged to Floris
Brandt, and do belong to thee of right, his granddaughter. These I did
usurp for a debt long since defrayed with interest. These I now restore
their rightful owner with peni