e to lose it."

"Hush! I heard a sound from under the hood."

"'Tis only the old woman snoring."

"I wish you could have found a more comfortable sledge."

"There was none to be had in Haarlem to-day. But we'll easily get one in
Leyden."

In Leyden! Gilda's numbed body quivered with horror. She was being taken
to Leyden and further on still by sleigh! Her thoughts at present were
still chaotic but gradually she was sorting them out, one or two
becoming more clear, more insistent than the rest.

"I would like the jongejuffrouw to have something to eat and drink,"
came once more in whispers from out the darkness. "I fear that she will
be faint!"

"No! no!" came the prompt, peremptory reply, "it would be madness to let
her realize so soon where she is. She knows this place well."

A halt on the way to Leyden! and thence a further journey by sledge!
Gilda's thoughts were distinctly less chaotic already. She was beginning
to marshal them up in her mind, together with her recollections of the
events of the past twenty-four hours. The darkness around her, which was
intense, and the numbness of her body all helped her to concentrate her
faculties on these recollections first and on the obvious conclusions
based upon her position at the present moment.

She was being silenced effectually because of the knowledge which she
had gained in the cathedral last night. The Lord of Stoutenburg,
frightened for his plans, was causing her to be put out of his way.
Never for a moment did she suspect her own brother in this. It was that
conscienceless, ambitious, treacherous Stoutenburg! at most her brother
was blindly acquiescent in this infamy.

Gilda was not afraid. Not even when this conviction became fully matured
in her mind. She was not afraid for herself, although for one brief
moment the thought did cross her mind that mayhap she had only been
taken out of Haarlem in order that her death might be more secretly
encompassed.

But she was cast in a firmer mould than most women of her rank and
wealth would be. She came of a race that had faced misery, death and
torture for over a century for the sake of its own independence of life
and of faith, and was ready to continue the struggle for another hundred
years if need be for the same ideals, and making the same sacrifices in
order to attain them. Gilda Beresteyn gave but little thought to her own
safety. Life to her, if Stoutenburg's dastardly conspiracy against the
Stadthol