g fingers encountered the latch of the door of the inner
room where Maria lay snoring lustily.

It took Gilda some little time to wake the old woman, but at last she
succeeded, and then ordered her, very peremptorily, to strike a light.

"Are you ill, mejuffrouw?" queried Maria anxiously even though she was
but half awake.

"No," replied Gilda curtly, "but I want my dress--quick now," she added,
for Maria showed signs of desiring to protest.

The jongejuffrouw was in one of those former imperious moods of hers
when she exacted implicit obedience from her servants. Alas! the last
few days had seen that mood submerged into an ocean of sorrow and
humiliation, and Maria--though angered at having been wakened out of a
first sleep--was very glad to see her darling looking so alert and so
brisk.

Indeed--the light being very dim--Maria could not see the brilliant glow
that lit up the jongejuffrouw's cheeks as with somewhat febrile
gestures she put on her dress and smoothed her hair.

"Now put on your dress too, Maria," she said when she was ready, "and
tell my father, who is either in the tap-room down below or hath already
retired to his room, that I desire to speak with him."

And Maria, bewildered and flustered, had no option but to obey.

CHAPTER XLIV

BLAKE OF BLAKENEY

While Maria completed a hasty toilet, Gilda's instinct had drawn her
back once more to the open window. The light from the room below was
still reflected on the opposite wall, and from the tap-room the buzz of
voices had not altogether ceased.

Cornelius Beresteyn was speaking now:

"Indeed," he said, "it will be the one consolation left to me, since you
do reject my friendship, sir."

"Not your friendship, sir--only your money," interposed Diogenes.

"Well! you do speak of lifelong parting. But your two friends have
indeed deserved well of me. Without their help no doubt you, sir, first
and then my dearly loved daughter would have fallen victims to that
infamous Stoutenburg. Will a present of twenty thousand guilders each
gratify them, do you think?"

A ringing laugh roused the echoes of the sleeping hostelry.

"Twenty thousand guilders! ye gods!" exclaimed Diogenes merrily.
"Pythagoras, dost hear, old bladder-face? Socrates, my robin, dost
realize it? Twenty thousand guilders each in your pockets, old compeers.
Lord! how drunk you will both be to-morrow."

Out of the confused hubbub that ensued Gilda could disentangle nothi