white,
mysterious cliffs. My mother was Dutch and he broke her heart...."

"Not an unusual story, alas, these times!" quoth a sober mynheer with a
sigh. "I know of more than one case like your own, sir. Those English
adventurers were well favoured and smooth tongued, and when they gaily
returned to their sea-girt island they left a long trail behind them of
broken hearts--of sorrowing women and forsaken children."

"My mother, sir, was a saint," rejoined Diogenes earnestly, "my father
married her in Amsterdam when she was only eighteen. She was his wife,
yet he left her homeless and his son fatherless."

"But if he saw you, sir, as you are," said Cornelius Beresteyn kindly,
"he would surely make amends."

"But he shall not see me, sir," retorted Diogenes lightly, "for I hate
him so, because of the wrong he did to my mother and to me. He shall
never even hear of me unless I succeed in carving mine own independent
fortune, or contrive to die like a gentleman."

"Both of which, sir, you will surely do," now interposed Beresteyn with
solemn conviction. "Your acts and words do proclaim you a gentleman, and
therefore you will die one day, just as you have lived. In the
meanwhile, I am as good as my word. My daughter's safety, her life and
her honour are worth a fortune to me. I am reputed a wealthy man. My
business is vast, and I have one million guilders lying at interest in
the hands of Mynheer Bergansius the world-famed jeweller of Amsterdam.
One-half that money, sir, shall be yours together with my boundless
gratitude, if you deliver my daughter out of the hands of the
malefactors who have seized her person and bring her back safe and sound
to me."

"If life is granted me, sir," rejoined Diogenes imperturbably, without a
blush or a tremor, "I will find your daughter and bring her safely to
you as speedily as God will allow me."

"But you cannot do this alone, sir ..." urged Cornelius, on whom doubt
and fear had not yet lost their hold. "How will you set to work?"

"That, mynheer, is my secret," rejoined Diogenes placidly, "and the
discussion of my plans might jeopardise their success."

"True, sir; but remember that the anxiety which I suffer now will be
increased day by day, until it brings me on the threshold of the grave."

"I will remember that, mynheer, and will act as promptly as may be; but
the malefactors have twenty-four hours start of me. I may have to
journey far ere I come upon their track."

"