nerous
in her sight; but he was more determined than ever that his enemy should
stand disgraced before her first and die on the gallows on the morrow.

Then it was that putting up his hand to the region of his heart, which
indeed was beating furiously, it encountered the roll of parchment
which lay in the inner pocket of his doublet. Fate, chance, his own
foresight, were indeed making the way easy for him, and quicker than
lightning his tortuous brain had already formed a plan upon which he
promptly acted now.

"Gilda," he said quietly, "though God knows how ready I am to do you
service in all things, this is a case where weakness on my part would be
almost criminal, for indeed it would be to a hardened and abandoned
criminal that I should be extending that mercy for which you plead."

"Indeed, my lord," she retorted coldly, "though only a woman, I too can
judge if a man is an abandoned criminal or merely a misguided human
creature who doth deserve mercy since his confession was quite open and
frank."

"Commonsense did prompt him no doubt to this half-confession," said
Stoutenburg dryly, "or a wise instinct to win leniency by his conduct,
seeing that he had no proofs wherewith to substantiate his former lies.
Am I not right, fellow?" he added once more turning to the prisoner,
"though you were forced to own that you alone are responsible for the
outrage against the jongejuffrouw, you have not told her yet that you
are also a forger and a thief."

Diogenes looked on him for a moment or two in silence, just long enough
to force Stoutenburg's shifty eyes to drop with a sudden and involuntary
sense of shame, then he rejoined with his usual good-humoured flippancy:

"It was a detail which had quite escaped my memory. No doubt your
Magnificence is fully prepared to rectify the omission."

"Indeed I wish that I could have spared you this additional disgrace,"
retorted Stoutenburg, whose sense of shame had indeed been only
momentary, "seeing that anyhow you must hang to-morrow. But," he added
once more to the jongejuffrouw, "I could not bear you to think, Gilda,
that I could refuse you anything which it is in my power to grant you.
Before you plead for this scoundrel again, you ought to know that he has
tried by every means in his power--by lying and by forgery--to fasten
the origin of all this infamy upon your brother."

"Upon Nicolaes," she cried, "I'll not believe it. A moment ago he did
vindicate him freely."

"O