nd that he was
neither a forger nor a thief, only just a soldier of fortune with a
contempt for death, and an unspoken adoration for the one woman who
seemed to him as distant from him as the stars.

But there were no vain regrets in him now; no regret of life, for this
he always held in his own hand ready to toss it away for a fancy of an
ideal--no regret of the might-have-been because he was a philosopher,
and the very moment that love for the unattainable was born in his heart
he had already realized that love to him could only mean a memory.

Therefore when he watched the preparations out there in the mist, and
heard the heavy blows upon the wooden planks and the murmurs of his
sympathizers at their work, he only smiled gently, self-deprecatingly,
but always good-humouredly.

If the Lord of Stoutenburg only knew how little he really cared.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE HOUR

A curiously timid voice roused the philosopher from his dreams.

"Is there aught I can do for you, sir? Alas! my friend the Lord
Stoutenburg is deeply angered against you. I could do nothing with him
on your behalf."

Diogenes turned his head in the direction whence had come the voice. He
saw Nicolaes Beresteyn standing there in the cold grey mist, with his
fur cloak wrapped closely up to his chin, and his face showing above the
cloak, white and drawn.

The situation was not likely to escape Diogenes' irrepressible sense of
humour.

"Mynheer Beresteyn," he exclaimed; "Dondersteen! what brings your
Mightiness here at this hour? A man on the point of death, sir, has no
call for so pitiable a sight as is your face just now."

"I heard from my Lord Stoutenburg what happened in the hut last night,"
said Beresteyn in a faltering voice, and determined not to heed the
other's bantering tone. "You exonerated me before my sister ... sir,
this was a noble act ... I would wish to thank you...."

"And do so with quaking voice and shaking knees," quoth Diogenes with
unalterable good-humour, through which there pierced however an obvious
undercurrent of contempt. "Ye gods!" he added with a quaint sigh, "these
men have not even the courage of their infamy!"

The words, the tone, the shrug of the shoulders which accompanied
these, stung Nicolaes Beresteyn's dormant dignity to the quick.

"I do not wonder," he said more firmly, "that you feel bitter contempt
for me now. Your generosity for which I did not crave hath placed me
momentarily at a di