y put their heads together over the news: Italy was an immense
distance off. If they could only keep him there?

"Keep him there? Nothing would keep him long from his Margaret."

"Curse her!" said Sybrandt. "Why didn't she die when she was about it?"

"She die? She would outlive the pest to vex us." And Cornelis was wroth
at her selfishness in not dying, to oblige.

These two black sheep kept putting their heads together, and tainting
each other worse and worse, till at last their corrupt hearts conceived
a plan for keeping Gerard in Italy all his life, and so securing his
share of their father's substance.

But when they had planned it they were no nearer the execution: for that
required talent: so iniquity came to a standstill. But presently, as if
Satan had come between the two heads, and whispered into the right ear
of one and the left of the other simultaneously, they both burst out--

"THE BURGOMASTER!"

They went to Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, and he received them at once:
for the man who is under the torture of suspense catches eagerly at
knowledge. Certainty is often painful, but seldom, like suspense,
intolerable.

"You have news of Gerard?" said he eagerly.

Then they told about the letter and Hans Memling. He listened with
restless eye. "Who writ the letter?"

"Margaret Van Eyck," was the reply; for they naturally thought the
contents were by the same hand as the superscription.

"Are ye sure?" And he went to a drawer and drew out a paper written by
Margaret Van Eyck while treating with the burgh for her house. "Was it
writ like this?"

"Yes. 'Tis the same writing," said Sybrandt boldly.

"Good. And now what would ye of me?" said Ghysbrecht, with beating
heart, but a carelessness so well feigned that it staggered them. They
fumbled with their bonnets, and stammered and spoke a word or two, then
hesitated and beat about the bush, and let out by degrees that they
wanted a letter written, to say something that might keep Gerard in
Italy; and this letter they proposed to substitute in Hans Memling's
wallet for the one he carried. While these fumbled with their bonnets
and their iniquity, and vacillated between respect for a burgomaster,
and suspicion that this one was as great a rogue as themselves, and
somehow or other, on their side against Gerard, pros and cons were
coursing one another to and fro in the keen old man's spirit. Vengeance
said let Gerard come back and feel the weight of the law. Pr