se life hath
been spent in searching Nature's? And for leaving Sevenbergen, what is
there to keep me in it, thee unwilling? Is there respect for me here, or
gratitude? Am I not yclept quacksalver by those that come not near me,
and wizard by those I heal? And give they not the guerdon and the honour
they deny me to the empirics that slaughter them? Besides, what is't to
me where we sojourn? Choose thou that, as did thy mother before thee."

Margaret embraced him tenderly, and wept upon his shoulder.

She was respited.

Yet as she wept, respited, she almost wished she had had the courage to
tell him.

After a while nothing would content him but her taking a medicament he
went and brought her. She took it submissively, to please him. It
was the least she could do. It was a composing draught, and though
administered under an error, and a common one, did her more good than
harm: she awoke calmed by a long sleep, and that very day began her
preparations.

Next week they went to Rotterdam, bag and baggage, and lodged above a
tailor's shop in the Brede-Kirk Straet.

Only one person in Tergou knew whither they were gone.

The Burgomaster.

He locked the information in his own breast.

The use he made of it ere long, my reader will not easily divine: for he
did not divine it himself.

But time will show.

CHAPTER L

Among strangers Margaret Brandt was comparatively happy. And soon a new
and unexpected cause of content arose. A civic dignitary being ill, and
fanciful in proportion, went from doctor to doctor; and having arrived
at death's door, sent for Peter. Peter found him bled and purged to
nothing. He flung a battalion of bottles out of window, and left it
open; beat up yolks of eggs in neat Schiedam, and administered it in
small doses; followed this up by meat stewed in red wine and water,
shredding into both mild febrifugal herbs, that did no harm. Finally,
his patient got about again, looking something between a man and a
pillow-case, and being a voluble dignitary, spread Peter's fame in every
street; and that artist, who had long merited a reputation in vain,
made one rapidly by luck. Things looked bright. The old man's pride was
cheered at last, and his purse began to fill. He spent much of his gain,
however, in sovereign herbs and choice drugs, and would have so invested
them all, but Margaret white-mailed a part. The victory came too late.
Its happy excitement was fatal.

One evening, in bidding