Prince of Orange."

"If it is a question of price...."

"It is not a question of price, mejuffrouw," he broke in firmly, "let
us, an you will allow it, call it a question of mine erratic
conscience."

"I am rich, sir ... my private fortune...."

"Do not name it, mejuffrouw," he said jovially, "the sound of it would
stagger a poor man who has to scrape up a living as best he can."

"Forty thousand guilders, sir," she said pleading once more eagerly, "an
you will take me to Delft to-morrow."

"Were it ten hundred thousand, mejuffrouw, I would not do it unless I
knew what you wished to say to the Stadtholder."

"Sir, can I not move you," she implored, "this means more to me than I
can hope to tell you." Once again her pride had given way before this
new and awful fear that her errand would be in vain, that she had come
here as a suppliant before this rogue, that she had humbled her dignity,
entreated him, almost knelt to him, and that he, for some base reason
which she could not understand, meant to give himself the satisfaction
of refusing the fortune which she did promise him.

"Can I not move you," she reiterated, appealing yet more earnestly, for,
womanlike, she could not forget that moment awhile ago, when he had
knelt instinctively before her, when the irony had gone from his smile,
and the laughter in his mocking eyes had yielded to an inward glow.

He shook his head, but remained unmoved.

"I cannot tell you, sir," she urged plaintively, "what I would say to
the Prince."

"Is it so deadly a secret then?" he asked.

"Call it that, an you will."

"A secret that concerns his life?"

"That I did not say."

"No. It was a guess. A right one methinks."

"Then if you think so, sir, why not let me go to him?"

"So that you may warn him?"

"You were merely guessing, sir...."

"That you may tell him not to continue his journey," he insisted,
speaking less restrainedly now, as he leaned forward closer to her, her
fair curls almost brushing against his cheek as they fluttered in the
draught.

"I did not say so," she murmured.

"Because there is a trap laid for him ... a trap of which you know...."

"No, no!" she cried involuntarily.

"A trap into which he may fall ... unknowingly ... on his way to the
north."

"You say so, sir," she moaned, "not I...."

"Assassins are on his track ... an attempt will be made against his
life ... the murderers lie in wait for him ... even now ... and you,
mejuff