swear to return straightway from Delft. I'll only speak with
the Prince and return immediately.... Money! always money!" she cried
with sudden vehemence, "a great man's life, the honour of a house, the
salvation of the land, are these all to be sacrificed because of the
greed and cupidity of men?"

"Shall I call Mynheer Ben Isaje?" asked Diogenes placidly, "mayhap,
mejuffrouw, that you could persuade him more easily than me!"

But at this she rose to her feet as suddenly as if she had been stung:
the colour in her cheeks deepened, the tears were dry in her eyes.

"You," she exclaimed, and there was a world of bitter contempt in the
tone of her voice, "persuade you who have tricked and fooled me, even
while I began to believe in you? You, who for the past half hour have
tried to filch a secret from me bit by bit! with lying words you led me
into telling you even more than I should! and I, poor fool I thought
that I had touched your heart, or that at least there was some spark of
loyalty in you which mayhap prompted you to guess that the Prince was in
danger. Fool that I was! miserable, wretched fool! to think for a moment
that you would lend a hand in aught that was noble and chivalrous! I
would I had the power to raise the blush of shame in your cheeks, but
alas! the shame is only for me, who trusting in your false promises and
your lies have allowed my tongue to speak words which I would give my
life now to unsay--for me who thought that there was in you one feeble
spark of pity or of honour. Fool! fool that I was! when I forgot for one
brief moment that it was your greed and cupidity that were the props
without which this whole edifice of infamy had tottered long ago;
persuade you to do a selfish deed! you the abductor of women, the paid
varlet and mercenary rogue who will thieve and outrage and murder for
money!"

She sank back in her chair and, resting her arms upon the table, she
buried her face in them, for she had given way at last to a passionate
fit of weeping. The disappointment was greater than she could bear after
the load of sorrow which had been laid on her these past few days.

When she heard through the chatterings of a servant that the Stadtholder
was at Delft this very night, the memory of every word which she had
heard in the cathedral on New Year's Eve came back to her with renewed
vividness. Delft! she remembered that name so well and Ryswyk close by,
the only possible way for a northward journ