and such additional
brilliance to her eyes.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE

The Lord of Stoutenburg was the first to enter: behind him came Jan, and
finally a group of soldiers above whose heads towered another broad
white brow, surmounted by a wealth of unruly brown hair which now clung
matted against the moist forehead.

At a word of command from Stoutenburg, Jan and the other soldiers
departed, leaving him and the prisoner only before Gilda Beresteyn.

The man had told her on that first night at Leyden that his name was
Diogenes--a name highly honoured in the history of philosophy.
Well!--philosophy apparently was standing him in good stead, for truly
it must be responsible for the happy way in which he seemed to be
bearing his present unhappy condition.

They had tied his arms behind his back and put a pinion through them,
his clothes were torn, his massive chest was bare, his shirt bore ugly,
dark stains upon it, but his face was just the same, that merry laughing
face with the twinkling eyes, and the gentle irony that lurked round the
lines of the sensitive mouth: at any rate when Gilda--overcome with
pity--looked up with sweet compassion on him, she saw that same curious,
immutable smile that seemed even now to mock and to challenge.

"This is the man, mejuffrouw," began Stoutenburg after awhile, "who on
New Year's day at Haarlem dared to lay hands upon your person. Do you
recognize him?"

"I do recognize him," replied Gilda coldly.

"I imagine," continued Stoutenburg, "that he hath tried to palliate his
own villainies by telling you that he was merely a paid agent in that
abominable outrage."

"I do not think," she retorted still quite coldly, "that
this ... this ... person told me that he was being paid for that
ugly deed: though when I did accuse him of it he did not deny it."

"Do you hear, fellow?" asked Stoutenburg, turning sharply to Diogenes,
"it is time that all this lying should cease. By your calumnies and evil
insinuations you have added to the load of crimes which already have
earned for you exemplary punishment; by those same lies you have caused
the jongejuffrouw an infinity of pain, over and above the horror which
she has endured through your cowardly attack upon her. Therefore I have
thought it best to send for you now so that in her exalted presence at
least you may desist from further lying and that you may be shamed into
acknowledging the truth. Do you hear