r or...."

"As soon as the fat philosopher has disposed of the Lord of Stoutenburg
and of Jan he too will jump into the sledge and a minute later will be
speeding on its way to Haarlem."

"And there will be three of us left here to hang you to that same
gallows on which you should have dangled an hour ago," exclaimed
Beresteyn savagely.

"Possibly," retorted Diogenes dryly, "but even so your sister will be on
the way to Haarlem rather than to exile--whither the Lord of Stoutenburg
and you--her brother--would drag her."

"And what is it to you, you abominable plepshurk, whither I go with my
sister and my friend?"

"Only this, mynheer, that yesterday in this very room I proclaimed
myself a forger, a liar and a thief before the jongejuffrouw in order
that her love for her only brother should not receive a mortal wound. At
that moment I did greatly care for that lie," he added with his wonted
flippancy, "but time hath lent it enchantment: It is on the whole one of
the finest lies I ever told in my life; moreover it carried conviction;
the jongejuffrouw was deceived. Now I will not see that pet lie of mine
made fruitless by the abominable action which you have in
contemplation."

Beresteyn made no immediate reply. Easily swayed as he always was by a
character stronger than his own, the words spoken by the man whom he had
always affected to despise, could not fail to move him. He knew that
that same abominable action of which he was being accused had indeed
been contemplated not only by Stoutenburg but also by himself. It had
only required one word from Stoutenburg--"Gilda of course comes with
us"--one hint that her presence in Holland would be a perpetual menace
to his personal safety, and he had been not only willing but fully
prepared to put this final outrage upon the woman whom he should have
protected with his life.

Therefore now he dared not meet the eager, questioning glance of this
adventurer, in whose merry eyes the look of irrepressible laughter was
momentary veiled by one of anxiety. He looked around him restlessly,
shiftily; his wandering glance fell on the narrow inner door which stood
open, and he caught a glimpse of a smaller room beyond, with a window at
the further end of it. That window had been broken in from without, the
narrow frame torn out of its socket and the mullion wrenched out of its
groove.

Through the wide breach thus made in the lath and mud walls of the hut,
Beresteyn suddenly s