nly because I had at last taken away from him the proofs which he had
forged."

"The proofs? what do you mean, my lord?"

"When my men captured this fellow last night, they found upon him a
paper--a bond which is an impudent forgery--purported to have been
written by Nicolaes and which promised payment to this knave for laying
hands upon you in Haarlem."

"A bond?" she murmured, "signed by Nicolaes?"

"I say it again, 'tis an impudent forgery," declared Stoutenburg hotly,
"we--all of us who have seen it and who know Nicolaes' signature could
see at a glance that this one was counterfeit. Yet the fellow used it,
he obtained money on the strength of it, for beside the jewelry which he
had filched from you, we found several hundred guilders upon his person.
Liar, forger, thief!" he cried, "in Holland such men are broken on the
wheel. Hanging is thought merciful for such damnable scum as they!"

And from out the pocket of his doublet he drew the paper which had been
writ by the public scrivener and was signed with Nicolaes' cypher
signature: he handed it to Gilda, even whilst the prisoner, throwing
back his head, sent one of his heartiest laughs echoing through the
raftered room.

"Well played, my lord!" he said gaily, "nay! but by the devils whom you
serve so well, you do indeed deserve to win."

In the meanwhile Gilda, wide-eyed and horrified, not knowing what to
think, nor yet what to believe, scarcely dared to touch the infamous
document whose very presence in her lap seemed a pollution. She noticed
that some portion of the paper had been torn off, but the wording of the
main portion of the writing was quite clear as was the signature
"Schwarzer Kato" with the triangle above it. On this she looked now with
a curious mixture of loathing and of fear. Schwarzer Kato was the name
of the tulip which her father had raised and named: the triangle was a
mark which the house of Beresteyn oft used in business.

"O God, have mercy upon me!" she murmured inwardly, "what does all this
treachery mean?"

She looked up from one man to the other. The Lord of Stoutenburg, dark
and sullen, was watching her with restless eyes; the prisoner was
smiling, gently, almost self-deprecatingly she thought, and as he met
her frightened glance it seemed as if in his merry eyes there crept a
look of sadness--even of pity.

"What does all this treachery mean?" she murmured again with pathetic
helplessness, and this time just above her brea