lightly and as airily
as another would take a pleasing turn of fortune's wheel.

Conscious at last that his look of unconquerable good-humour was working
upon her nerves, Gilda forced herself to break the spell of numbness
which had so unaccountably fallen upon her.

"I should like to say to you, sir," she murmured, "how deeply I regret
the many harsh words I spoke to you at Leyden and ... and also last
night ... believe me there was no feeling in me of cruelty toward you
when I spoke them."

"Indeed, mejuffrouw," he rejoined placidly, whilst the gentle mockery in
his glance became more accentuated, "indeed I am sure that your
harshness towards me was only dictated by your kindliness. Believe me,"
he added lightly, "your words that evening at Leyden, and again last
night were most excellent discipline for my temper: for this do I thank
you! they have helped me to bear subsequent events with greater
equanimity."

She bit her lip, feeling vexed at his flippancy. A man on the point of
death should take the last hours of his life more seriously.

"It grieved me to see," she resumed somewhat more stiffly, "that one who
could on occasions be so brave, should on others stoop to such infamous
tricks."

"Man is ever a creature of opportunity, mejuffrouw," he said
imperturbably.

"But I remembered you--you see--on New Year's Eve in the Dam Straat when
you held up a mob to protect an unfortunate girl; oh! it was bravely
done!"

"Yet believe me, mejuffrouw," he said with a whimsical smile, "that
though I own appearances somewhat belie me, I have done better since."

"I wish I could believe you, sir. But since then ... oh! think of my
horror when I recognized you the next day--at Leyden--after your
cowardly attack upon me."

"Indeed I have thought of it already, mejuffrouw. Dondersteen! I must
have appeared a coward before you then!"

He gave a careless shrug of the shoulders, and very quaintly did that
carelessness sit on him now that he was pinioned, wounded and in a
relentless enemy's hands.

"Perhaps I am a coward," he added with a strange little sigh, "you think
so; the Lord of Stoutenburg declares that I am a miserable cur. Does man
ever know himself? I for one have never been worth the study."

"Nay, sir, there you do wrong yourself," she said gently, "I cannot
rightly gauge what temptations did beset you when you lay hands upon a
defenceless woman, or when you forged my brother's name ... for this you
did