forthwith be
conveyed back to her father. Her thoughts of pleading for the condemned
man's life: then the tramping of feet, the cries of terror, her
brother's appearance bringing the awful news of betrayal. She lived over
again those moments of supreme horror when she realized how Stoutenburg
had deceived her, and that Nicolaes himself was but a traitor and a
miserable liar.

She knew then that it was the adventurer, the penniless soldier of
fortune whom she had tried to hate and to despise, who had quietly gone
to warn the Stadtholder, and that his action had been the direct working
of God's will in a brave and loyal soul: she knew also by a mysterious
intuition which no good woman has ever been able to resist, that the man
who had stood before her--self-convicted and self-confessed--had
accepted that humiliation to save her the pain of fearing and despising
her own brother.

The visions now became more dim and blurred. She remembered
Stoutenburg's fury, his hideous threats of vengeance on the man who had
thrown himself across his treacherous path. She remembered pleading to
that monster, weeping, clinging to his arm in a passionate appeal. She
remembered the soul agony which she felt when she realized that that
appeal had been in vain.

Then she had stood for a moment silent and alone in the hut. Stoutenburg
had left her in order to accomplish that hideous act of revenge.

After that she remembered nothing clearly. She could only have been
half-conscious and all round her there was a confusion of sounds, of
shouts and clash of arms: she thought that she was being lifted out of
the chair into which she had fallen in a partial swoon, that she heard
Maria's cries of terror, and that she felt the cold damp morning air
striking upon her face.

Presently she knew that Nicolaes was beside her, and that she was being
taken home. All else was a blank or a dream.

Now she was tossing restlessly upon the lavender-scented bed in this
hostelry so full of memories. Her temples were throbbing, her eyes felt
like pieces of glowing charcoal in her head. The blackness around her
weighed upon her soul until she felt that she could not breathe.

Outside the silence of the night was being gravely disturbed: there was
the sound of horses' hoofs upon the cobble-stones of the yard, the
creaking of a vehicle brought to a standstill, the usual shouts for
grooms and ostlers. A late arrival had filled the tranquil inn with its
bustle an