ite the loathing which the slightest contact
with such a fiend caused her, she clung with both her hands to his arm.

"My lord!" she entreated, "in the name of your dear mother, in the name
of all that is yet good and pure and noble in you, do not allow this
monstrous crime to add to the heavy load of sin which rests upon your
soul. God is just," she added earnestly, "God will punish us all if such
an infamy is done now at this supreme hour when our destinies are being
weighed in the balance."

But he looked down on her suddenly, with an evil leer which sent a chill
right through her to her heart.

"Are you pleading for a man who mayhap hath sent your brother to the
scaffold?" he asked.

His glance now was so dark and so cruel, the suspicion which lurked in
it was so clear, that for the moment Gilda was overawed by this passion
of hate and jealousy which she was unable to fathom. The quick hot blood
of indignation rushed to her pale cheeks.

"It was of Nicolaes that I was thinking," she said proudly, "if that man
dies now, I feel that such a dastardly crime would remain a lasting
stain upon the honour of our house."

"The crime is on you, Gilda," he retorted, "in that you did betray us
all. Willingly or unwittingly, you did deliver me into the hands of my
most bitter enemy. But I pray you, plead no more for a knave whom you
surely must hate even more bitterly than I do hate him. The time goes
by, and every wasted minute becomes dangerous now. I pray you make
yourself ready to depart."

She had not given up all thoughts of pleading yet; though she knew that
for the moment she had failed, there floated vaguely at the back of her
mind a dim hope that God would not abandon her in this her bitterest
need. He had helped her in her direst trouble; He had averted the
hideous treachery which threatened to stain her father's honoured name
and her own with a hideous mark of shame; surely He would not allow this
last most terrible crime to be committed.

No doubt that vague frame of mind, born of intense bodily and mental
fatigue, betrayed itself in the absent expression in her eyes, for
Stoutenburg reiterated impatiently:

"I can give you a quarter of an hour wherein to make ready."

"A quarter of an hour," she murmured vaguely, "to make ready?... for
what?"

"For immediate departure with me and your brother for Belgium."

Still she did not understand. A deep frown of puzzlement appeared
between her brows.

"Depar