ph in his
voice, "that man is still a helpless prisoner in my hands."

"What do you mean?" she murmured.

"I mean that it is good to hold the life of one's deadliest enemy in the
hollow of one's hand."

"But you would not slay a defenceless prisoner," she cried.

He laughed, a bitter, harsh, unnatural laugh.

"Slay him," he cried, "aye that I will, if it is not already done. Did
you hear the hammering and the knocking awhile ago? It was Jan making
ready the gibbet. And now--though the men have run away like so many
verdommde cowards, I know that Jan at any rate has remained faithful to
his post. The gibbet is still there, and Jan and I and Nicolaes, we have
three pairs of hands between us, strong enough to make an enemy swing
twixt earth and heaven, and three pairs of eyes wherewith to see an
informer perish upon the gallows."

But already she had interrupted him with a loud cry of overwhelming
horror.

"Are you a fiend to think of such a thing?"

"No," he replied, "only a man who has a wrong to avenge."

"The wrong was in your treachery," she retorted, even while indignation
nearly choked the words in her throat, "no honest man could refuse to
warn another that a murderous trap had been laid for him."

"Possibly. But through that warning given by a man whom I hate, my life
is practically at an end."

"Life can only be ended by death," she pleaded, "and yours is in no
danger yet. In a couple of hours as you say you will have reached the
coast. No doubt you have taken full measures for your safety. The
Stadtholder is sick. He hath scarce a few months to live; when he dies
everything will be forgotten, you can return and begin your life anew.
Oh! you will thank God then on your knees, that this last hideous crime
doth not weigh upon your soul."

"A wrong unavenged would weigh my soul down with bitterness," he said
sombrely. "My life is done, Gilda. Ambition, hope, success, everything
that I care for has gone from me. Nicolaes may begin his life anew; he
is young and his soul is not like mine consumed with ambition and with
hatred. But for that one man, I were to-day Stadtholder of half our
provinces and sole ruler of our United Netherlands, instead of which
from this hour forth I shall be a fugitive, a pariah, an exile. All this
do I owe to one man," he added fiercely, "and I take my revenge, that is
all."

He made a feint as if ready to go. But Gilda with a moan of anguish had
already held him back. Desp