daughter "Good night," and then quietly went out of the room.

CHAPTER XLV

THE END

Diogenes sat beside the window in the tapperij listening with half an
ear to the sounds in and about the hostelry which were dying out one by
one. At first there had been a footfall in the room overhead which had
seemed to him the sweetest music that man could hear. It had paced
somewhat restlessly up and down and to the Laughing Cavalier, the gay
and irresponsible soldier of fortune, it had seemed as if every creaking
of a loose board beneath the featherweight of that footfall found its
echo in his heart.

But anon Mynheer Cornelius Beresteyn was called away and then all was
still in the room upstairs, and Diogenes burying his head in his hands
evoked the picture of that room as he had seen it five days ago. The
proud jongejuffrouw in her high-backed chair, looking on him with blue
eyes which she vainly tried to render hard through their exquisite
expression of appealing, childlike gentleness: and he groaned aloud with
the misery of the inevitable which with stern finger bade him go and
leave behind him all the illusions, all the dreams which he had dared to
weave.

Had she not told him that she despised him, that his existence was as
naught to her, that she looked on him as a menial and a knave, somewhat
below the faithful henchmen who were in her father's service? Ye gods!
he had endured much in his life of privations, of physical and mental
pain, but was there aught on earth or in the outermost pits of hell to
be compared with the agony of this ending to a dream.

The serving-wench came in just then. She scarcely dared approach the
mynheer with the merry voice and the laughter-filled eyes who now looked
so inexpressibly sad.

Yet she had a message for him. Mynheer Cornelius Beresteyn, she said,
desired to speak with him once more. The wench had murmured the words
shyly, for her heart was aching for the handsome soldier and the tears
were very near her eyes. But hearing the message he had jumped up with
alacrity and was immediately ready to follow her.

Mynheer Beresteyn had a room on the upper floor, she explained, as she
led the way upstairs. The old man was standing on the narrow landing and
as soon as Diogenes appeared upon the stairs, he said simply:

"There was something I did forget to say to you downstairs; may I
trouble you, sir, to come into my room for a moment."

He threw open one of the doors that gav