se as of a dream which yet had in it the pulsating
vividness of life.

She was the first to break this silence which was beginning to be
oppressive. Gilda Beresteyn was not a timid woman nor was hers a
character which ever vacillated once her mind was made up. The step
which she had taken this night--daring and unconventional as it was--had
been well thought out: deliberately and seriously she had weighed every
danger, every risk which she ran, even those which in her pure-minded
innocence she was not able fully to appreciate. Now though she was
scared momentarily, she had no thought of turning back.

The old stiff-necked haughtiness of her race did not desert her for a
moment, even though she was obviously at a disadvantage in this
instance, and had come here as a suppliant.

"I wished to speak with you, sir," she said, and her voice had scarce a
tremor in it, "my woman was too timorous to come down and summon you to
my presence, as I had ordered her to do; so I was forced to come
myself."

Though she looked very helpless, very childlike in her innocence, she
had contrived to speak to him like a princess addressing a menial,
holding her tiny head very high and making visible efforts to still the

quivering of her lips.

There was something so quaint in this proud attitude of hers under the
present circumstances, that despite its pathos Diogenes' keen sense of
humour was not proof against it, and that accustomed merry smile of his
crept slowly over every line of his face.

"I am ever at your service, mejuffrouw," he said as gravely as he could,
"your major domo, your valet ... I always await your commands."

"Then I pray you take this candle," she said coldly, "and stand aside
that I may enter. What I have to say cannot be told in this passage."

He took the candle from her, since she held it out to him, and then
stepped aside just as she had commanded, keeping the door wide open for
her to pass through into the room. She was holding herself very erect,
and with perfect self-possession she now selected a chair whereon to
sit. She wore the same white gown which she had on when first he laid
hands on her in the streets of Haarlem, and the fur cloak wherein she
had wrapped herself had partially slid from her shoulders.

Having sat down, close to the table, with one white arm resting upon it,
she beckoned peremptorily to him to close the door and to put the candle
down; all of which he did quite mechanically, for