LEATHERFACE (continued 4)

She had done it because God Himself through her father's and her King's own mouth had ordered her to do it; and it was not for her--ignorant, unsophisticated, sinful mayhap--to question God's decrees. But when she thought back on the events of the past hour, she felt a shudder of horror slowly creeping along her spine.

And she thanked God that He would allow her to leave this house for ever, and for ever to turn her back on those whom she--so unwillingly--had betrayed.

But she would not allow her mind to dwell on such morbid fancies. There was a great deal to be done ere the morning broke. Her task--if it was to be fruitful--was not completed yet.

She began by taking down a pair of metal candlesticks which stood on a shelf above the hearth and lighting the candles at a small lamp which she had brought up with her. These she placed upon the table; then she went to the press where only a few hours ago Inez had ranged all her clothes and effects, her new gowns and linen. From among these things, she took a flat wallet in which were some sheets of paper, a quill and small inkhorn, also some wax for sealing letters down.

She went to her task slowly and methodically, for she was unaccustomed to writing letters. In the convent they had taught her how to do it, and twice a year she had written to her father--once on New Year's Day, and once on the feast of San Juan--but the task before her was a far more laborious one than she had ever undertaken with pen and paper.

But she sat down, courageously, to write.

She wrote an account of everything that she had seen, heard and experienced in this house, from the moment when first she left her room in the evening in order to seek companionship, until the moment when, having secured the packet of papers, she had relocked the bureau with her pass-key and started to go back to her room. What she did not set down in writing was her subsequent meeting with her husband, for that had no connection with the Prince of Orange or with conspiracies, and was merely a humiliating episode in the life of a neglected bride.

The grey dawn slowly creeping in through the leaded glass of her window still found her at her task. The candles had burned down low in their sockets, their light--of a dim yellow colour--fought feebly against the incoming dawn. But Lenora felt no fatigue.

She wrote in a small, cramped hand and covered four sheets of paper with close writing. When she had finished, she read all that she had written down carefully through, made several corrections in the text and folded the sheets neatly together. Then she took from the bosom of her gown the packet of papers which she had found in the bureau, put it together with her own writing and enclosed everything in a clean sheet of paper carefully folded over. Round this she tied a piece of white ribbon, such as she used for doing up her hair, and sealed it all down with wax.

Finally, on the outside of this packet she wrote with a clear hand:

"To don Juan de Vargas at his refidence in Brufsels. To be given unto Him with the Seal unbroken in the eyent of My death."

II

Lenora tired out with emotion and bodily exertion slept soundly for a few hours. When Inez came in, in the late morning to wait on her, she ordered the old woman to put up a few necessary effects in a small leather valise, and to pack up all her things and all her clothes.

"My father hath need of me for a few days," she said in response to Inez' exclamation of astonishment. "We start this morning for Brussels."

"For which the Lord be praised," ejaculated Inez piously, "for of all the dull, miserable, uncomfortable houses that I ever was in in my life..."

"Hold your tongue, woman," broke in Lenora sharply, "and see to your work. You will never be done, if you talk so much."

And Inez--more than ever astonished at this display of temper on the part of a young mistress who had always been kind and gentle--had perforce to continue her mutterings and her grumblings under her breath.

Whilst the old woman laid out carefully upon the bed all the pretty things which she had stowed away in the presses only twenty-four hours ago, Lenora busied herself with yet another task which she had set herself, but which she had been too tired to accomplish in the night.

She wrote a short letter to Laurence.

"My DEVOTED FRIEND," she wrote, "You promifed Me a very little while ago that if ever I wanted You to do fomething for Me, I was only to fend You this ring and You would do whatever I afked. Now, in the name of Our Lady, I adjure You to leave Ghent at once taking Your Mother with You. A grave danger threatens You both. I know that You have relatives in Haarlem. I entreat You--nay! I afk it of You as a fulfilment of Your promife to go to them at once with Your Mother. Your Father is in no danger, and Mark will be efcorting Me to Brufsels, and I fhall try and keep Him there until all danger is paft...."

Having written thus far, she paused a moment, pen in hand, a frown of deep puzzlement and of indecision upon her brow. Then she continued in a firm hand:

"It is Your Mother's and Your own complicity in the plot which is being hatched in Ghent again ft the Duke of Alva which has brought Your lives in danger."

She strewed the sand over her writing, then read the letter carefully through. After which she took a ring from off her finger, enclosed it in the letter and sealed the latter down.

"Inez!" she said.

"Yes, my saint."

"I shall be starting for Brussels within the hour."

"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed the old woman. "I shall not be ready with the packing. Why this hurry, my angel?"

"Your not being ready, Inez, is of no consequence. I shall start with Messire van Rycke. You will follow on in the wagon."

"But, my saint..."

"Now do not talk so much, Inez," broke in Lenora impatiently; "if you add to my anxieties by being quarrelsome and disobedient I shall surely fall sick and die."

Evidently the young girl knew exactly how to work on her faithful old servant's temperament. Inez reduced to abject contrition by the thought that she was rendering her darling anxious and sick, swore by every saint in the calendar that she would bite off her tongue, toil like a slave and be as obedient as a cur, if only her darling angel would keep well and cheerful and tell her what to do.

"You must not fret about me, Inez," resumed Lenora as soon as the old woman's voluble apologies and protestations had somewhat subsided. "My husband will escort me as far as Brussels, and in my father's house little Pepita will wait on me till you come."

"And if that flighty wench doesn't look after you properly..." began Inez menacingly.

"You will make her suffer, I've no doubt," quoth Lenora dryly. "In the meanwhile, listen carefully, Inez, for there is something that I want you to do for me, which no one else but you can do."

"For which the Lord be thanked!" said Inez fervently. "What is it, my dear?"

"This letter," she said.

"Yes?"

"I want Messire Laurence van Rycke to have it, after I have gone."

"He shall have it, my saint."

"He may be from home."

"I shall find him."

"He must have it before midday."

"He shall have it."

"Promise!"

"I'll swear it."

The old woman took the letter with the ring which her mistress held out to her, and then only did Lenora feel that she had done all that lay in her power to reconcile her duty to her King with her sentiment for those who had been kind to her.

III

How Lenora spent the rest of the long, wearisome, interminable morning she never afterwards could have told you. The very atmosphere around her oppressed her well-nigh unbearably. There were the farewells to be said to the family--to the High-Bailiff who was apologetic and obsequious, to Clémence who cried, and to Laurence who looked sadly enquiring and reproachful.

Fortunately Mark had paved the way for these farewells in his usual airy and irresponsible manner. It was the Spanish custom--so he had assured his mother--that brides, after spending twenty-four hours under their husband's roof, returned to their parents or guardians for a few weeks. Clémence had smiled incredulously when she had heard this--but had allowed herself anon to be persuaded. There were such queer marriage customs in different parts of the world these days. (Why! in many parts of Germany the bridegroom was, according to tradition, soundly thrashed by his friends directly after the religious ceremony--it was in order that he should be prepared for the many vicissitudes of connubial life. And there were other equally strange customs in foreign lands.) Spain was a curious country--Clémence was prepared to admit, and ... ah, well! perhaps it was all for the best! She had been attracted by the beautiful girl whom indeed a cruel fate seemed to have tossed into the very midst of a family with whom she had absolutely nothing in common. Clémence had been sorry for her in her gentle, motherly way but she had mistrusted her ... and just now all Clémence's thoughts were centred on her country's wrongs, on the great fight for political and religious liberty which had received so severe a blow, and which the noble Prince of Orange was still determined to carry on with the help of God.

And so--though Clémence cried a little, and though her kind heart ached for the young girl who looked so pathetic and so forlorn when she bade her good-bye--she nevertheless felt a sense of relief when she remembered all that had been talked of and planned in this house last night, and thought of the packet of papers which were locked away with her most precious jewels. She kissed the girl tenderly, and spoke of the happy day when she would come back to her new home never to leave it again. Lenora, pale, like a young ghost, with dark rings under her eyes, and lips that quivered with the sobs she was vainly trying to suppress, made an effort to respond, and then hurried out of the room. But when she saw Laurence he was alone in the hall and she contrived to whisper to him: "You remember the ring?"

He nodded eagerly.

"I shall soon send it you," she said, "and ask you to do something for my sake."

"Command me," he implored, "and it shall be done."

IV

Then at last the farewells were all spoken and Lenora and her husband started on their way. It had rained in torrents all the morning--therefore departure was delayed until long past midday. The wagons for the effects were to be round almost immediately, but their progress would be very slow owing to the bad state of the roads.

The road between Ghent and Brussels runs parallel with the Schelde for the first two or three leagues. The river had overflowed its banks, and in places the road was so deep under water that the horses sank in it almost up to their bellies. Everywhere it was fetlock-deep in mud, and more like a ploughed field than a chaussée owing to the continual passage recently of cavalry and artillery.

Mark and Lenora were travelling alone, which was distinctly unseemly in a lady of her rank, but the distance was not great, and Inez had to be left behind to finish up the packing, whilst Mark refused to take a serving man with him, declaring that the roads were perfectly safe now and free from footpads, and that they would surely be in Brussels before nightfall. Lenora, who was an absolute stranger in the country and did not know one Flemish town from another--and who moreover had done the journey from Brussels to Ghent ten days ago in a covered coach drawn by four horses--was ready to accept any suggestion or any itinerary with the blindness of ignorance.

She hardly noticed that they seemed to be making very slow progress, nor that the sky which had cleared up brilliantly in the early part of the afternoon was once more heavily overcast. Mark at first had made one or two attempts at cheerful conversation, but since Lenora only answered in monosyllables he too relapsed into silence after awhile.

The flat, monotonous country--sodden with rain--looked unspeakably dreary to the girl accustomed to the snow-clad vistas of the Sierras and the blue skies of Castille. As they left Ghent further and further behind them, the country bore traces of the terrible ravages of Alva's relentless occupation. Poverty and wretchedness were writ largely upon every tiny village or hamlet which they passed: everywhere the houses bore a miserable and forlorn aspect, with broken chimneys and shattered roofs, trees cut down to make way for the passage of cavalry or merely for the supplying of firewood for Alva's army. In the little town of Wetteren through which they passed, the houses looked deserted and dilapidated: the people looked ill-clad and sullen, and as they crossed the market-place a crowd of beggars--men, women and children in miserable rags--flocked around their horses' heels begging for alms.

So much had Spanish occupation done for this proud country which only a very few years ago had boasted that not one of its children ever lacked clothing or food. Tears of pity gathered in Lenora's eyes: she, of course, did not know that the misery which she witnessed was due to her people, to her country and to her King ... and in no small measure to her father. She gave the poor folk money and said kindly words of compassion to them. Then she turned to Mark.

"It is dreadful," she said naïvely, "to see so much misery in the land, when our Sovereign Lord the King does so much for its welfare. It is these wretched internal dissensions, I suppose, that are ruining the country. Surely all those abominable rebels must see that their obstinacy and treachery redounds upon their own kith and kin."

"They ought to see that, oughtn't they?" was Mark's dry and curt comment. And Lenora, chilled by such strange indifference, once more relapsed into her former silence.

V

When they neared the walls of Dendermonde, Mark announced that his horse had cast a shoe. He dismounted, and leading his horse by the bridle he advanced to the city gate. Here, however, both he and Lenora were summarily stopped by a young provost who demanded to see their papers of identification, their travelling permits, and their permit to enter this fortified city.

To Lenora's astonishment Mark, who was always so good-humoured and placid, became violent and abusive at this formality imposed upon him. It was in no way different to those which the municipality of Ghent would have enjoined on any stranger who desired to enter the city. These had been rendered necessary by the many stringent edicts formulated by the Lieutenant-Governor against the harbouring of rebels in fortified towns, and all law-abiding citizens were in consequence obliged to provide themselves with the necessary passes and permits whenever they desired to travel.

Lenora--whose ignorance of every law, every formality, every duty imposed upon this once free and proud country by its Spanish masters was unbounded--could not quite understand why her husband, who was the son of a high civic dignitary, had not taken care that all his papers were in order, before he embarked upon this journey. It surely had been his duty to do that, in order to save himself and his wife from the humiliation of being thus held up at a city gate by an insolent provost, who had the power to make his authority felt, and was not sparing of abuse of loutish Netherlanders who were wilfully ignorant of the law, or else impudent enough to flout it. An unpleasant quarrel between the two men would undoubtedly have ensued and would inevitably have ended in disaster for Mark, but for the intervention of Lenora who spoke to the provost in Spanish.

"I am this noble gentleman's wife," she said haughtily in response to an insolent look from the young soldier, "and the daughter of señor Juan de Vargas, who will make you responsible, sirrah, for any inconvenience you may cause me."

At mention of the all-powerful and dreaded name, the provost's manner immediately underwent a change. At the same time he was not prepared to accept the statement quite so unconditionally as Lenora had supposed.

"This noble gentleman," he retorted half-sullenly, "hath no papers whereby I can verify the truth of what he asserts. He has none whereby he can prove to me that he is the son of the High-Bailiff of Ghent, and that you are his wife and the daughter of don Juan de Vargas."

"You have my word for both these assertions, you accursed fool," exclaimed Mark hotly.

"And I'll make you rue your insolence, you dog of a Netherlander," retorted the provost, "and teach you how to treat a soldier of the King...."

"Mark, I entreat you, not in my presence," broke in Lenora hastily, for she saw that her husband--apparently beside himself with rage--was about to commit one of those foolish and purposeless acts of violence which would have resulted for them both in a veritable chaplet of unpleasantness: imprisonment in a guard-room, bringing up before a sheriff, interrogations, abuse and insults, until the High-Bailiff or her father could be communicated with--a matter probably of two or three days, dependent on the good will of the very sheriff before whom they would appear.

It was positively unthinkable. Lenora could not understand how Mark could be so foolish as to lose his temper, when he was so obviously in the wrong, nor how he could have been so thoughtless in the matter of the papers.

She managed by dint of tactful speech and the power of her beautiful personality to pacify the wrath of the provost, and to half-persuade him to believe her assertion that she was indeed the daughter of don Juan de Vargas. At any rate the young soldier was by now sufficiently impressed by the sound of that dreaded name to decline any further responsibility in this difficult matter.

He allowed the travellers to pass through the city gates: "And to remain within the city for two hours," he added significantly; "if you wish to stay the night, you must obtain permission from the Schout."

Mark eased his temper by muttering a few more imprecations under his breath, then he seemed content and somewhat pacified, and finally led Lenora's horse and his own quietly through the inner fortifications, and thence across the Flax Market to the Grand' Place.

VI

Mark established his young wife in the ingle-nook of the tapperij in the highly-respectable tavern of the "Merry Beggars," opposite the Cloth Hall.

He enjoined the host and hostess to take every care of the noble lady, and then he went off himself in search of a farrier.

Fortunately at this hour--it was just three o'clock in the afternoon--the tapperij was practically deserted. In one corner by the window, two middle-aged burghers were playing hazard, in another a soldier was fast asleep. Mine host was passing kind; he brought a roomy armchair up to the hearth for the pretty lady, threw a fresh log upon the fire, kicked it into a blaze and placed a footstool at Lenora's feet. His wife--a buxom though sad-eyed Flemish vrouw--brought her some warm milk and a piece of wheaten bread. Lenora ate and drank with relish for she was both hungry and tired, and when she had finished eating, she leaned back in the big armchair and soon fell comfortably asleep. She had had practically no rest the night before: her nerves were overstrung, and her eyes hot with weeping. There was also a heavy load on her heart--a load chiefly weighted by the packet which was destined for her father and which she still carried carefully hidden in the bosom of her gown.

So strange are the contradictions of the human heart--of a woman's heart above all--that ofttimes to-day as her horse ambled slowly along beside Mark's she had caught herself wishing--hoping--that something unforeseen would occur which would make it impossible for her to go to Brussels--something which would force her to go back to Ghent with the contents of that packet still a close secret within her heart. In the morning she had watched the skies anxiously, hardly aware that within her innermost soul she was hoping that the continuous rains had made the roads impassable--broken down a bridge--that some sign in fact would come to her from God that she was absolved from that awful oath, the fulfilment of which seemed indeed an impossible task.

Then would come a terrible revulsion of feeling: she would remember that the Prince of Orange was even now in Ghent, with two thousand men who were to be armed by him so that they might fight against their King and threaten the life of the Lieutenant-Governor, the King's own chosen representative. And she would hate and despise herself for her cowardly irresolution--her very prayer to God appeared like blasphemy--and she wanted to urge the horses forward, she fretted at every delay, for delay might mean the murder of the Duke of Alva, and the standard of rebellion hoisted up in triumph above the Town House of Ghent.

Women will understand and pity her--those at least who once in their life have been torn 'twixt duty and sentiment. Lenora was not one of the strong-minded of her sex: she was very young--a mere girl reared in the tranquillity of convent life, and then suddenly thrown into the vortex of political intrigue, of cruel reprisals and bitter revolt; and heart and mind within her fought a terrible battle which threatened to ruin her entire life.

But in the meanwhile she was sorely in need of rest. The tapperij was so quiet and the ingle-nook was rendered quite private by a tall screen between it and the rest of the room. The soldier in the corner was snoring with insistent monotony, a big blue-bottle droned against the window, and a pleasing glow and cheerful crackling came from the fire in the hearth.

Lenora slept peacefully.

CHAPTER X

ENEMIES

I

When she woke, Mark was sitting as he was so fond of doing on a low stool close to the hearth, with one long leg stretched out to the blaze, his elbow resting on his knee, his face overshadowed by his hand. Lenora--even as she first opened her eyes--saw that he was looking at her. A quick blush rose to her cheeks.

"Is it time to go?" she asked quickly.

"Not yet," he replied.

She was a little startled and looked around her, puzzled and anxious. The room had looked so light and cheerful when she had entered it--two large bow windows gave on the Grand' Place--and the weather had remained clear and bright. But now it seemed so dark, almost as if twilight was fading fast.

"What hour is it?" she questioned, and looked about her anxiously for a clock.

"I do not know," he replied airily.

"But your horse?"

"Still at the farrier's: he was busy and could not shoe her at once."

"But I am sure that it must be getting late," she said with a sudden note of anxiety in her voice.

"Very late, I am afraid," he said lightly.

"Then should we not be starting for Brussels?"

"We cannot. I have no horse."

"You can hire one, surely?"

"Not in this town."

"But I must be in Brussels by nightfall," she urged.

"I am afraid that this is impossible in any case. The powers that reign supreme in this town would not--if you remember--allow us into it, and now they will not allow us out."

"But that is impossible," she exclaimed, "monstrous!..."

"Monstrous, as you say, Madonna," he rejoined with a smile. "But do you feel equal to scaling the city walls?"

"Oh!"

"I fear me that that would be the only thing to do, if indeed you desire to be in Brussels this night ... and even then, I doubt but that they would bring us back."

"Then, Messire," she asked, trying to appear as calm, as detached, as he seemed to be, "do you mean to tell me that we must spend the night--here?"

"It is a pretty city..." he suggested.

"That we cannot now start for Brussels?"

"Impossible. The Schout of Dendermonde hath refused to allow us out of this city until we have proved to his satisfaction that we are neither spies of the Prince of Orange, nor emissaries of the Queen of England."

"You should have seen to it, Messire," she said haughtily, "that all our papers were in order. This is an exceedingly mortifying and unpleasant contretemps."

"I did not know the French word for it, Madonna," he rejoined with exasperating good-humour, "but I know that it must be somewhat unpleasant ... for you."

She tried to meet his glance, without that tell-tale blush spreading immediately over her cheeks: and she could have cried with vexation when she saw that the merry twinkle was more apparent in his grey eyes than it had been since their wedding day.

"I believe," she said slowly, "that you, Messire, have devised this scheme from beginning to end. You neglected your papers purposely--purposely you quarrelled with the provost at the gate--purposely you have caused me to be detained in this miserable city...."

"A pretty city, Madonna," he interposed imperturbably, "the church was built three hundred years ago ... the Cloth Hall..."

"And now you are impertinent," she declared hotly.

"Impertinent," he said quietly, even though the merry, gently mocking glance still lingered in his eyes, "impertinent because I decline to look on the present situation as a tragedy? How can I do that, Madonna, since it gives me the opportunity of spending an evening alone with you?"

"You might have done that yesterday and saved me much humiliation," she retorted.

"Yesterday I was a fool, Madonna," he said. "To-day I have become a wise man."

"What hath changed you?"

"Ten minutes of your company in the dining-hall last night."

She made no reply, glad enough that at this moment twilight was already fading into dusk. In the ingle-nook where they sat, there was hardly any light now save the glow of the fire. Anon the buxom, sad-eyed hostess came in carrying a lamp which she placed on one of the tables in the tapperij. She seemed to know--by that subtle instinct which pertains to every woman's heart--that the seignior and his noble lady did not wish to be disturbed. This was not the busy hour at the hostel: in about an hour's time, the soldiers off duty would be coming in, and the shopkeepers from their shops after their day's work; but just now there was no one, so the kindly old soul having so placed the lamp that a beneficent shadow still enveloped the ingle-nook, quietly tip-toed out of the room.

II

Several minutes went by before Lenora was able to shake off the curious torpor which had fallen over her senses: nor could she in any way account for the sweet feeling of well-being which accompanied it. She had made no reply to Mark's last words, nor did she make any now. She lay back in her chair with eyes half closed, feeling, knowing that he was looking at her unceasingly, with that intent, searching gaze of his which she had encountered once or twice before. She felt as if he were trying to reach her very soul--he, the careless ne'er-do-well, the dissolute frequenter of taverns--what did he care for a woman's soul?

And yet it seemed impossible for Lenora at this moment to disguise from that searching gaze all those terrible conflicts which had literally been tearing her heart asunder in the past few hours--nay, more! it seemed as if the very letter which lay inside the folds of her kerchief addressed to her father must be lying open before her husband's eyes and that he was reading it even now.

The feeling became akin to a sweet obsession, and gradually she allowed her senses to yield themselves to its soothing influence. After all had she not been sure that sooner or later God would make His will manifest to her? had she not prayed for guidance? had she not hoped all the morning that something would prevent her journey to Brussels? Content to leave everything in God's hands she had yet hoped that God would point the way to which her own heart was tending.

And now, circumstances had suddenly occurred which did impede the journey--the horse had cast a shoe, the provost at the gate had proved officious, the hour had slipped by and no horse was forthcoming.

Given the absolute simplicity of the girl's religious thoughts, her upbringing, the superstition which underlay all beliefs in the old tenets of the Church during this period of stress and struggle through which she was groping her way through darkness into light: given Lenora's pure nature and the proud humility which accepted unquestioningly all the commands of those whom she had been taught to reverence, was it to be wondered at that while she was quite ready to do her duty, she should nevertheless hope and think that she had at last received a distinct, supernatural sign that her journey to Brussels was not one of those decrees of God before which everything on earth must bow and every obstacle be removed?

But even then--in spite of her wishes and her hopes--she fought on to the last and refused to yield to the sweet, insistent call of peace and of sentiment. What she took to be a sign from God might easily be an insidious machination of the devil. There was a quaint look of gentle amusement in Mark's eyes, which was certainly disquieting, and it was just possible that it was he who had--wittingly or unwittingly--assumed the role of a guiding Providence in the matter.

Therefore she steeled her heart against those subtle whisperings which seemed to lure her on every side to give up the fight, to allow herself to drift on the soothing wave which even now was carrying her to a haven, where all was peace and quietude and where there was neither strife nor intrigue.

"Messire," she said abruptly and as repellently as she could, "I pray you enlighten mine ignorance. How many cowardly deeds of this sort stand to your discredit?"

He smiled quite unperturbed: "You think me an adept?" he asked quietly.

"You are not ashamed?" she retorted.

"Not in the least. What have I done?"

"Insulted me at every turn," she said very calmly. "What is this detention---here, alone with you, in this strange town, away even from the protection of my own serving wench--what is it but an insult? You have shown me plainly enough, by every means in your power, that you had no liking for me. Even last night..."

She paused because tears of humiliation--which she would have given worlds not to shed--would come to her eyes, and her voice shook in spite of every effort which she made at self-control.

"Madonna," he entreated, and suddenly he was quite close to her, with one knee almost touching the ground, "as you are beautiful, so will you not be merciful to a miserable wretch, who hath been sorely perplexed by all the disdain which you have so generously lavished upon him?"

"Disdain, Messire ... surely I..."

"Surely," he broke in gently, "you have every right to despise a worthless fellow whom an evil Chance hath given you for husband, but have I not been punished enough for daring to accept what the kind goddess did offer me?"

"I had no thought of punishing you, Messire," she said earnestly. "When I stood beside you at the altar, I was a broken-hearted woman to whom Fate in the person of a miserable assassin had dealt a cruel blow. I loved my cousin, Messire ... oh! I know," she broke in quietly, "I ought not to speak of this ... it is unseemly and perhaps unkind ... but I did love him and he was murdered ... foully, abominably, wickedly murdered ... not killed in fair fight--not openly--but in a dark passage--waylaid by a brigand ... killed! he! the only man who had ever spoken tenderly to me! ... and killed by one of your own people ... a friend of the Prince of Orange ... a man whom popular talk hath nicknamed Leatherface.... Oh! I know," she added hastily, seeing that instinctively he had drawn away from her and was now staring straight into the fire, with a hard expression on his face which she could not fathom, "I know that you have no hand in these conspiracies ... that from indifference rather than loyalty, I believe you have never taken up the cause of rebellion against our Sovereign Lord; but tell me, Messire, could I--a young, inexperienced girl--could I dissociate you and yours in my mind from that faction who had sent my kinsman to his death? could I come to you with a whole heart, and a soul freed from all thoughts of hatred and revenge? I meant to do my duty by you and had you but helped me I might have succeeded--instead of which your coldness repelled me. I am of the south, Messire, I am not one of your cold, unemotional Netherlanders who can go through life without one thrill of the heart brought on by a tender word or a caress. I was in your house but a few hours and already my soul was starving--my heart craved for that which you were not able to give."

"God forgive me, Madonna," he murmured, "for a blind, insensate fool!" But he did not look at her as he said this, and there was a curious dreary tone in his voice so unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. "How you must hate us all!" he added with a sigh.

"I would not hate you, Messire," she said so softly that he scarcely could hear; "your brother Laurence hath been kind to me and I know that you take no part in those miserable plots that have treachery and assassination for their ultimate goal. As for the Prince of Orange and his friends! Yes! I do hate them as I do all pestilential creatures that turn on the hand that feeds them!"

"Madonna," he exclaimed hotly--and suddenly he was quite close to her once again, both her little hands held tightly in his own: his eyes had lost all their merriment: they were full of a glowing ardour which seemed to penetrate into her very soul. "Madonna," he continued, "may God forgive you, for indeed you know not what you say. Child! child! will you think a moment--are we not human creatures like yourself? do we not live and breathe, and eat and love just like you do in Spain? Have we no hearts to feel, no eyes to see the misery which our people suffer through the presence of a stranger in our land? Would you see a Teuton place his iron heel on Spain and on her people? Would you see the Emperor enforce his laws, his faith, his ideals upon your kith and kin? Would you stand by whilst foreign soldiery swaggered about your cities, outraged your women and plundered your homes? Would you rest content if the faith which God hath given you was made akin to treachery and to rebellion? The hand that feeds the Netherlands, Madonna!" he added whilst a bitter, mirthless laugh escaped his lips, "nay! the hand against which the valiant Prince of Orange hath raised his in vengeance, is the hand that hath devastated our land, pillaged our cities and sent our people naked and starving out into the world!"

Gradually while he spoke she had drawn herself away from him, and she would have disengaged her hands too, only that he held them so tightly imprisoned.

"But Ramon was murdered, Messire," she said slowly, "can you expect me to forget that?--and even now--I would dare swear--there are men who would murder the Duke of Alva if they could ... or my father."

He made no answer to that--perhaps had she not mentioned her father he might have tried to tell her that killing was not always murder, but, at times, the work of a justiciary. Ramon--like the noisome brute that he was--deserved death as no mere ordinary criminal ever had deserved it. But how could he tell her that, when in her heart she had evidently kept a picture of the man so totally unlike the vile and execrable reality? So now he only sighed and remained silent.

The time had not yet come when this exquisite, tender-hearted girl must see the riddles of life solved before her one by one--when she would realise that there is a wider horizon in this world than that which she perceived above a convent wall. She had been brought up with ideals, thoughts and aspirations that had nothing to do with the great and bitter truths which were proclaimed in every corner of this downtrodden land. Her ideas of King and country, of duty, of loyalty, must all be shattered by the crude realities of life ere upon their ruins she built for herself a purer, holier edifice of faith and hope and infinite charity.

A tender pity for her innocence and her ignorance filled Mark's heart and soul, A maddening desire seized him to fold her in his arms and carry her away somewhere into a dream-world far away where there were no intrigues and no cruelties, no oppression and misery: and yet again he would have loved to go with her there where sorrow and poverty were keenest, for he knew that her soul--unbeknown even to herself--was full of that gentle compassion which knows how to alleviate pain just by a look from tear-dimmed eyes, or a touch from a gentle hand.

All that and more his look conveyed to her although he remained silent, and she--by a curious intuition--knew just what was in his mind. The impassioned appeal which he had made to her just now, told her that he was not the indifferent ne'er-do-well that every one supposed. He felt deeply and keenly--more deeply and keenly mayhap than those men who plotted murders at dead of night. He was not a blind follower of the Lieutenant-Governor or of her father: he saw the misery under which his people groaned, and his careless, detached air obviously hid intense bitterness and resentment.

But strangely enough, she did not blame him for this. Suddenly she seemed to see the whole aspect of this strange country under a new light: the cause of the Netherlanders had--in one instant--appeared to her from a wholly different point of view. Because Mark was their defender and their champion she felt that they could not be wholly vile. This, mayhap, was not logic, but it was something more potent, more real than logic--the soft insinuating voice of Sentiment which whispered: "Would he champion that cause if it were base? Would that fiery ardour fill his soul for a cause that was unworthy?"

And Lenora suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to confide in this one man; to place before him all the perplexities which were tearing her soul. Somehow she felt that he would help her out of that tangled labyrinth wherein she had been groping all night and all day; but shyness held her back. She did not know how to broach the subject, how to tell him all about her oath, her obedience to her father, what she had done last night, what she thought it her duty to do in the future.

It was all very difficult and Lenora sighed wearily:

"There is so much in what you said just now, Messire," she began timidly, "that I would like to understand more clearly. I am so ignorant ... my life has been so restricted ... I know so little of the world...."

"Will you let me give you a few lessons?" he queried softly. "There are so many mazes in life through which it is only possible to find the way by going hand in hand."

"Hand in hand?" she sighed. "I am a stranger in this strange land, Messire ... all that I know of it hath been taught me by those who have no love for it...."

"You are a stranger in this whole world, dear heart," he said with a smile. "This little bit of Netherlands is but a tiny corner of it: its sorrows, its joys, its pain and happiness are but the sorrows and happiness of the rest of the world. One day perhaps you will let me take your little hand in mine, and then we would go and explore the whole of this strange world together."

"I wonder what we would find?" she mused.

"We would find that despite intrigues and cruelty and hatred there is much in it that is still beautiful and pure. If we went hand in hand, you and I, we would not wander with eyes downcast and seeking in the mud for the noxious things which foul God's creation by their presence--we would look upwards, sweet, and see the soft blue of our northern skies, veiled as it so often is with silvery mists that hold the entire gamut of exquisite colours in their fairy bosoms; we would see the green leaves of the trees turn to russet and gold in the autumn, we would see the linnets nesting in the bay trees in the spring. There are many beautiful things in this dreary world of ours, dear heart, but they can only be seen if two pairs of eyes look on them at one and the same time and two pairs of lips whisper together in thankfulness to God."

How strange it was to hear him talking like this--Mark van Rycke, the haunter of taverns and careless profligate. Lenora's eyes, dark, luminous, enquiring, were fixed upon him--and gradually as he spoke his arm stole closer and closer round her shoulders as it had done two nights ago in Ghent when she had so wantonly turned on him in hatred. Now she felt as if she could go on listening to him for hours and hours--thus alone in this semi-darkness with the glow of dying embers upon his face, showing the strong outline of cheek and jaw, and the fine sweep of the forehead with the straight brows above those kind, grey eyes. She could have listened because she loved the sound of his voice, and the quaint, foreign intonation wherewith he spoke the Spanish tongue.

No! of a truth she did not dislike him: certainly she had no cause for hatred against him, for what had he to do with traitors or with assassins, he who spoke so gently of birds and skies and trees?

"If you will still let me hold this little hand, dear heart," he whispered now, speaking so low that in order to hear she had to lower her head until his lips were quite close to her ear, "we could learn one lesson together which God only teaches to His elect."

"And what lesson is that?" she asked, feigning not to understand, though she knew quite well what the answer would be.

"That which the nightingale teaches its mate when in May the hawthorn is in bloom and the west wind whispers among its leaves. The lesson of love."

"Love?" she said with a strange tremour in her voice, "the world no longer contains love for me...."

"The world perhaps not, dear sweet," he said more gaily, "but there is a heart beating close to yours now which holds I swear an infinity of love for you."

And once more as he spoke, the same magic spell of a while ago descended upon Lenora. It seemed as if for the moment life--the dreary, wretched life of the past few days--had ceased, and a kind of dream-existence had begun. And in this dream-existence she--Lenora--was all alone with this stranger--this man whom but a few days ago she had not even seen--who had had no part in her life in the peaceful past when she knew nothing of the world beyond the old convent walls at Segovia; yet now--in the dream-existence--she was alone with him and she was content. Ramon was not there--he had become the past--all the future for her seemed suddenly to be bound up with Mark, and she was content. He had spoken of beauty, of skies, of birds and of the gifts of God, and he still held her hand, and his arm now was right round her, so that she could feel him drawing her closer and closer to him, the while the magic spell worked upon her senses and she felt a delicious languor pervading her entire being.

"Give me your lips, sweetheart," he whispered in her ear, "and I'll give you your first lesson even now."

And verily I do believe that Lenora would have yielded here and now--content to leave the great solution of her life's riddle in the omnipotent hands of love--forgetting her oath to her father, the death of Ramon, the danger which threatened the Duke of Alva, conspiracies, treacheries, rebellion ... everything! What did it all matter? what did the world and its intrigues and its politics count beside the insistent, the wonderful call of Love?--the call of man to woman, of bird to bird, to mate and to nest and to be happy, to forget the universe in one embrace, to renounce the kingdoms of the world in the first blissful kiss.

For a few seconds Lenora remained quite still, while Happiness--the strange and mysterious elf--fluttered softly about the room. It hovered for awhile above that ingle-nook where two young hearts were mutely calling one to another, and it looked down on the beautiful girl with the glowing eyes and parted lips who with every fibre of her ardent being and the insistence of her youth was ready to capture it....

And Chance, Fate or its own elusive nature drove it relentlessly away.

III

How peaceful was the sleepy little town at this moment when dusk finally faded into night!

The tower bells of the Cloth Hall chimed the sixth hour: outside on the Grand' Place all had been still save for the occasional footstep of a passer-by or the measured tramp of a company of halberdiers on duty.

And now suddenly that peace was broken, the quietude of the town disturbed by piercing woman's shrieks, followed by shouts and curses uttered loudly by a rough, masculine voice.

Mark instinctively jumped to his feet; the cries had become pitiable and were multiplied by others which seemed to come from children's throats, and the shouts and curses became more peremptory and more rough.

"What is it?" asked Lenora, not a little frightened.

"Oh! the usual thing," replied Mark hastily, "a woman insulted in the streets, vain protests, rough usage, outrage and probably murder. We are used to such incidents in Flanders," he added quietly.

Already he was half way across the tapperij.

"You are going?" she queried anxiously, "whither?"

"Out into the street," he said, "can you not hear that a woman is in distress?"

"But what can you do?" she urged, "the soldiers are there ... you cannot interfere ... you, a Netherlander...."

"Yes! I, a Netherlander," he said. "It is a Flemish woman who is calling for help now."

He turned to go, and she--with the same instinct that was moving him--rose too and followed him:--the same instinct of protection: his--the man's for the woman who was in distress: hers--the woman's for the man who would pit his strength alone against superior numbers. She overtook him just as he reached the threshold of the tapperij. Beyond it was only the porch, the door of which stood wide open, and beyond that the Grand' Place; the shrieks and the ever-increasing noise of a scuffle came from an adjacent street close by.

"You must not go, Messire," she said insistently, as with both hands she clung to his arms, "what can you do? there is a crowd there ... and the soldiers...."

He smiled and tried very gently to disengage his arm from her clinging, insistent grasp.

"It will not be the first time, Madonna," he said with a light laugh, "that I have had a scuffle with a posse of soldiery ... they sometimes mean no harm," he added reassuringly seeing the look of anxious terror in her eyes, "many a time has a scuffle ended in jollity at a few words of common sense."

"Yes, yes, in Ghent," she urged, "where you are known. But here! ... where no one knows you ... spies of the Inquisition might be about ... if they see you interfering in favour of a heretic or a rebel ... or ... Oh! men have been hanged and burned for lesser crimes than that."

"Ah!" he said looking down with a whimsical smile into her flushed and eager face, "that is part of the benevolent rule which our Sovereign Lord the King exercises over the Low Countries!"

Then seeing that at his flippant words--through which there rang a note of intense bitterness--her eyes had suddenly filled with tears, he murmured tenderly:

"God bless you, Madonna, for your sweet thoughts of me! I pray you let me go! I'll come back soon," he added while a look of triumph flashed up in his eyes, "never fear!"

He ran out quickly into the street.

She hesitated, but only for a second: the next she had followed him, without thought that she had neither hood nor mantle, nor that the unseemliness of her conduct would surely have shocked all the great ladies of Spain.

IV

The Grand' Place was deserted and dark, only here and there in the windows of the Cloth Hall there was a glimmer of light. For a moment Lenora paused in the porch peering out into the gloom, trying to trace whence came the noise of the scuffle, for Mark had already disappeared: then she ran out swiftly, turning to her right from the porch till she reached the corner of a narrow street. Here an oil lamp fixed into a wall by an iron bracket threw a dim circle of light, beyond which the shadows appeared almost impenetrable. It was somewhere in amongst those shadows that a mêlée between shouting soldiers and shrieking women was taking place.

Up to this moment Lenora had never stopped to reflect as to what she meant or wanted to do. Blind instinct had driven her in the wake of Mark, feeling that he was in danger--as indeed he was: a Netherlander these days was in himself always an object of suspicion, and interference with Spanish soldiery under any circumstances was indeed likely to lead him into very grave trouble. If the soldiers were arresting or merely molesting a heretic or a rebel, any one who interfered with them would at once fall under the searching eye of the Inquisition--and there was never a lack of spies on such occasions: the seven stiver people--who for that paltry daily sum spent their lives in reporting treason, listening for it in every tavern, and in every back street of every city.

But now that she stood here at the street corner, hearing the ever-increasing noise of the scuffle close by, hearing the shouts, the cries, the pitiable appeals followed by peremptory commands, she realised how miserably impotent and helpless she was. Yet she could hear Mark's voice--speaking now in Spanish and now in Flemish, as he tried--obviously--to understand the situation and to plead for those who were in distress. At first his voice had sounded rough and peremptory: indeed Lenora could not help but marvel at its commanding quality, then gradually it became cheerful, and its tone turned to one of merry banter. The incident indeed was evidently one of those which, alas! were so usual in the cities and villages of the Low Countries these days: two young women coming home down the dark, back streets from some farm or silk-weaving shop where they had been at work, and a posse of half-drunken soldiers to whom a Flemish peasant was an acknowledged prey for ribald sport.

The women had resisted and tried to flee: they were pursued and rough horse-play had ensued: then they had screamed and the men had sworn, and presently other women and children joined in the scuffle while those who were wise stayed quietly indoors.

Horse-play had become a matter of blows followed by threats of arrest and dark hints at heresy, rebellion and the Inquisition: the mêlée was at its height when Mark interfered. Several blows were still exchanged after that, and there was a good deal of swearing and mutual objurgation. Lenora, listening, wondered with what skill Mark gradually made those curses turn to facetious remarks--ill-natured at first and uncouth--then more light-hearted, and finally grudgingly pleasant. Within five minutes the tumult began to subside: Lenora could hear the women weeping and the soldiers laughing quite good-humouredly. How it had all been done she did not know: presently from the tramping of feet she gathered that the mêlée had broken up: a woman's voice said loudly: "Gott vergelte!" and Lenora thought that indeed God would repay the light-hearted man of the world who had by sheer good-humour and compelling personality turned a drama into pleasing farce.

"Well, friend!" she heard a man's voice saying in Spanish, "I don't know who you are, but a right good fellow; an I'm not mistaken. Perhaps it was wisest to leave those women alone."

"I am sure of it, friend," quoth Mark gaily, "the commandant oft makes a to-do about street-brawling, and you might have been blamed and got two days' guard-room arrest just for kissing a pair of Flemish wenches. The game was not worth the candle. Even the devil would have no profit in it."

"Well said, mate," retorted the other lustily, "come and have a mug of ale on it with me and my men at the 'Duke's Head' down yonder."

"Thank you, friend, but I put up at the 'Merry Beggars' and must return thither now. A little later perhaps."

"At your service, comrade."

There was a pause during which Lenora made up her mind--since all tumult and all danger had passed--to go back to that ingle-nook beside the fire and there to wait till Mark returned ... to wait so that she might resume with him that conversation of awhile ago which had interested her so much. But on the point of turning she halted. Three words--spoken by one of the soldiers--had come to her out of the gloom, and caused her heart to stop its beating.

"You are hurt?" one man had said--in a kind, gruff way--evidently in deep concern.

"No! no! it's nothing," Mark replied, "a small scratch ... in the scuffle just now...."

"But you are bleeding...."

"And if I am, friend, it won't be the first time in my life. I tell you it's nothing," added Mark with obvious impatience. "Good-night!"

"Good-night!" came in chorus from the men.

V

The measured tramp of booted feet slowly dying away in the distance down the narrow street, told Lenora that at last the men had gone.

But Mark was hurt and she stood waiting at the street corner for she heard his step coming slowly toward her.

He was hurt and had made light of it, but one of the soldiers had remarked that he was bleeding and she waited now for him, dreading yet vaguely hoping that he was really wounded--oh! only slightly!--but still wounded so that she might wait on him.

So strange is a woman's heart when first it wakes from the dreams, the unrealities, the fairy-worlds of childhood! With beating heart Lenora listened to that slowly-advancing footstep--how slow it seemed! as if it had lost that elasticity which but a few moments ago had carried Mark bounding down this same street. Now it dragged and finally came to a halt, just as Mark's figure emerged into the shaft of light thrown along the wall by the street lamp close to which Lenora was standing.

She smothered a little cry and ran forward to meet him, for she had seen his figure sway, and halt, then lean heavily against the wall.

"You are hurt!" she exclaimed, even before she reached him.

At sound of her voice, he pulled himself together, and in a moment had straightened out his shoulders and was walking quite steadily toward her.

"Madonna!" he cried in astonishment, "what are you doing here?"

"Oh! I ... I..." she murmured, a little ashamed now that she met his pleasant, grey eyes fixed so kindly upon her, "I heard the noise ... I became anxious...."

"It was only a street-brawl," he said, "not fit for you to witness."

Even now, though he spoke quite firmly, his voice sounded weary and weak.

"You are hurt!" she reiterated.

"Hurt? No!" He laughed, but the laughter died on his lips: he had to steady himself against the wall, for a sudden dizziness had seized him.

"I pray you take my arm," she insisted. "Can you walk as far as the tavern?"

"Indeed I can," he retorted, "on my honour 'tis a mere scratch."

"An you'll not take my arm," she said peremptorily, "I'll call for help."

"Heaven forbid!" he exclaimed gaily. "I should be laughed at for a malingerer. Shall we return to the tavern, Madonna? and will you not take mine arm?"

He held his right arm out to her, but as he did so she noticed that he kept the other behind his back.

She did take his arm, however. It was obviously best--since he was more severely hurt than he cared to admit--to go at once back to the tavern, and dress the wound there with water and clean linen.

They walked in silence side by side. It was only a matter of an hundred yards or so, and after a very few moments they reached the porch of the "Merry Beggars," and as the buxom hostess was standing there, vaguely wondering what had happened to her guests, Lenora at once despatched her off for a basin of clean warm water and her very softest linen towels.

Then she went into the tapperij, and Mark followed her.

The room was as peaceful, as deserted as it had been awhile ago. The host himself had in the interval made up the fire, and it was blazing brightly, lighting up the little ingle-nook, with the high-backed chair wherein Lenora had sat and the low one drawn so close to it.

Turning to Mark, she noticed that he still kept his left arm resolutely behind his back.

"Our good hostess won't be long with the water," she said, "in the meanwhile, I pray you let me tend to your wound."

"It was nothing, Madonna, I entreat you," he said with marked impatience, "a blow from a halberd caught me on the arm. I scarcely feel it now."

"Let me see," she commanded.

Then as he made no movement to obey, she--half crying with anxiety, and half-laughing with excitement--ran swiftly round him, and in an instant she had hold, of his left hand, and with gentle pressure compelled him to yield it to her. He tried to struggle, but the pain in his arm rendered it somewhat helpless.

"I insist!" she said gently, and clung to his hand supporting the fore-arm as she did so.

"Your sleeve is covered with blood!" she exclaimed.

"It is nothing!" he persisted obstinately.

But for the moment she was the stronger of the two. Short of doing her violence he could not prevent her from holding his hand with one of hers, and with the other undoing the buttons at his wrist; then with utmost gentleness she detached the shirt which was sticking to a deep, gaping wound, that stretched from the wrist right up to the elbow.

"Oh! but this is terrible!" she cried. "No blow from a halberd could have inflicted such a wound! ... Oh! why does not that woman hurry?" she added, whilst tears of vexation and impatience rose to her eyes. There was nothing to hand wherewith she could staunch the wound, even momentarily--every second was precious!...

"I have a knowledge of such matters," she said gently. "At the convent we tended on many wounded soldiers, when they came to us hurt from the wars. This is no fresh wound, Messire," she added slowly, "but an old and very severe one, dealt not so very long ago ... by a dagger probably, which tore the flesh and muscle right deeply to the bone ... it had not healed completely ... the blow from the halberd caused it to reopen ... and..."

But the next words remained frozen on her lips: even whilst she spoke she had gradually felt a deathlike feeling--like an icy hand gripping her heart and tearing at its strings. An awful dizziness seized her. She looked up--still holding Mark's hand--and gazed straight into his face. He too was as pale as the dead ashes in the grate--his whole face had become wax-like in its rigidity, only his eyes remained alive and glowing, fixed into her own now with a look which held a world of emotion in its depths: passionate tenderness and mute appeal, an avowal and a yearning and with it all an infinity of despair.

And she, thus looking into that face which only lived through the eyes, saw all around her the narrow white-washed walls of the tapperij fading away into darkness. In their stead she saw a narrow passage, dark and gloomy, and in its remotest and darkest corner a figure cowered, clad in dark clothes from head to foot and wearing a mask of leather upon its face--the assassin waiting for his prey. And she saw Ramon--handsome, light-hearted, debonnaire Ramon--her kinsman and her lover, standing unsuspecting by. She saw it all--the picture as her father had painted it for her edification. The assassin lying in wait--Ramon unsuspecting. She saw the murder committed there in the dark, the stealthy, surreptitious blow. She saw Ramon totter and fall--but before falling turn on the dastardly murderer, and with hand already half paralysed by oncoming death, deal him a deep and gashing wound ... in the left fore-arm ... with his dagger which tore flesh and muscle between elbow and wrist right through to the bone.

And while she looked straight into his eyes and yet saw nothing but the vision of that awful deed, her lips murmured automatically the four accusing words:

"Then it was you!"

He had not for one second lost his hold upon himself, since that awful moment when he realised that she guessed. He had no idea that don Ramon, at the point of death, had spoken of the wound which he had inflicted on the man who had meted out summary justice to him for his crimes. But now he knew that the secret which he would have buried with him in a bottomless grave was known to her--to the woman whom he had learned to love with his whole soul. She knew now, and henceforth they must be not only strangers but bitter enemies. Nothing--not even perhaps his own death--would ever wipe away the sense of utter abhorrence wherewith she regarded him now. He took his last look of her as one does of one infinitely dear, who sinks into the arms of Death.

He drank in every line of her exquisite face, the child-like contour of chin and throat, her alabaster-like skin, the exquisite mouth which he was destined now never to touch with his yearning lips. In this supreme moment, his love for her--only just in its infancy--rose to its full effulgence; he knew now that he worshipped her, and knew that never while the shadow of her dead kinsman stood between them would he hold her in his arms.

"Then it was you!" she murmured again, and with those fateful words pronounced his condemnation and her own indomitable hate.

"Madonna," he entreated, speaking with the infinite tenderness and pity which filled his heart, "will you deign to listen, if I try to plead mine own cause?"

But no look of softness came into her eyes: they were glowing and dry and unseeing: she did not see him--not Mark, her husband as he stood there now before her--she saw him cowering in a dark corner, clad in sombre clothes and wearing a leather mask--she saw him with an assassin's dagger in his hand and she saw Ramon lying dead at his feet.

"Then it was you!" she said for the third time.

And he bent his head in mute avowal.

For a few seconds longer she stood there, rigid and silent: slowly her fingers opened and his hand which she had held dropped away to his side. A shudder went right through her, she tottered and nearly fell, only saving herself by holding on to the corner of the table. He made a movement as if he would try and support her, as if he would put his arms around her and pillow her against his breast, but with an exclamation of supreme loathing, she drew away from him, and with a pitiable cry half of hatred and wholly of misery, she turned and fled from the room.

CHAPTER XI

UTTER LONELINESS

I

What happened directly after that, Lenora did not know. Consciousness mercifully left her, and when she woke once more she found herself sitting in a small room which smelt of lavender and warm linen, beside a fire which burned low in a wide-open hearth.

She opened her eyes and looked enquiringly around her. The room was dark--only faintly lighted by the lamp which hung from a beam in the ceiling. A young girl was busy in a corner of the room bending over an ironing board.

"Does the noble lady feel better?" she asked kindly but with all the deference which those of the subject race were expected to show to their superiors.

She spoke in broken French--most women and men who served in the inns and taverns in the cities of the Low Countries were obliged to know some other language besides their own, seeing that the tapperijen were frequented by Spanish, French and German soldiery.

"I am quite well, I thank thee," replied Lenora gently, "but wilt thou tell me where I am and how I came to be sitting here when..."

She paused; for with a rush the recollection of the past terrible moments came sweeping back upon her, and it seemed as if consciousness would flee from her once again.

"The noble lady must have felt dizzy," said the girl quietly. "Aunt sent me in with the warm water for the noble seigneur's wound, and I saw the noble lady just running out of the tapperij to the porch and then fall--in a swoon. I was frightened, but the noble seigneur ordered me quickly to tie a towel around his wounded arm and then he carried the noble lady up here to a nice warm room, where he told me that mayhap she should deign to pass the night. Oh! the noble seigneur is grievously wounded, he..."

"Silence, girl," cried Lenora suddenly, for indeed with every word the child seemed to be touching an aching place in her heart. "No, no," she added more gently, seeing that the girl, abashed and not a little frightened, had gone back in silence to her ironing-board, "I did not mean to be unkind ... but ... as thou seest, I am not well. Come! tell me what happened after ... after the noble seigneur carried me up here."

"Aunt waited on him, noble lady," said the girl, "for the wound in his arm bled grievously ... but he was impatient and soon ordered her to leave him alone ... then I came up here, and did all I could to bring the noble lady round.... I tried vinegar and burned feathers under the noble lady's nose ... but I was not frightened ... I knew the noble lady would revive ... and the leech lives but two doors off.... We were all of us anxious about the noble seigneur ... because of his wound ... and he looked so pale and haggard ... so aunt and I soon ran down to him again.... We found him sitting by the table ... just sealing down a letter which he had been writing. 'I am going, mevrouw,' he says to aunt quite curtly. 'Take thine orders from the noble lady. She will tell thee her own wishes.' He gave her some money and a letter which he ordered her to give to the noble lady as soon as she deigned to wake. And then he took his hat and mantle and went out by the porch ... just like that ... all alone ... into the darkness ... whither he did not deign to say.... We are just poor people and we did not dare to ask, but the wind has sprung up and it hath begun to rain ... the night will be rough ... and the noble seigneur is not fit to hold a horse with his arm in such a grievous state."

"Where is the letter?" asked Lenora curtly.

From the pocket of her apron the girl produced a letter folded into four and sealed down with wax which she handed to the noble Spanish lady with a respectful curtsey.

"Aunt told me to give it to the noble lady," she said, "as soon as she deigned to wake."

"Is thine aunt the hostess of this inn?" queried Lenora. She was fingering the letter, feeling a curious hesitancy and reluctance to read its contents, and asked a few idle questions whilst she made an effort to control her nerves.

"Yes! at the noble lady's service," replied the girl.

"Art of this city, then?"

"No, so please you. I come from Ghent."

"From Ghent? What is thy name, then?"

"Grete, so please the noble lady," whispered the girl.

Then, as the noble lady said nothing more, but sat just quite still with the unopened letter in her hand, Grete went back to her ironing-board. Lenora watched her mechanical movements for awhile--a mist was before her eyes, and she could not see very clearly, but somehow she liked the look of Grete--Grete who was from Ghent--whom she would have liked to question further, only that when she tried to speak, the words seemed to get choked in her throat.

All of a sudden, she broke the seal upon the letter and swept away the mist before her eyes with an impatient movement of the hand.

"Madonna," he had written, "I would not leave You thus all alone in this ftrange place, to which an act of folly on My part did bring You, but that I read My difmifsal in Your eyes. The fight of me is hateful to You--alas! this I can underftand! By the time You read this, I fhall be far away. But anon upon the road I fhall meet the ox-wagon with Your effects and Your ferving-woman; it cannot be far from here, as the driver had orders to put up in this town for the night. I will fpeed him on as faft as He can, and then to-morrow You can continue Your journey in peace, for the driver will arrange for an efcort to accompany You as far as Brufsels. He will have His orders. In the meanwhile I have ventured to flip a sealed packet containing money into the pocket of Your gown: (it was done while you lay unconfcious in My arms.) I pray You do not fcruple to take it. The money is Yours: a part of Your dowry, an account of which My Father will render unto Yours as foon as may be. In the meanwhile You are free to come and go or ftay in this town, juft as You were in Brufsels or in Ghent. Your pafs and permit as well as Mine were in perfect order; the difpute with the Provoft at the gate, the difficulty about the permits, was but a rufe on My part fo that I might fpend a time in Your company, under the pretence that We were not allowed to continue Our journey to Brufsels. To afk Your forgivenefs for this as well as for other graver matters were ufelefs, I know. To afk You to erafe the events of the paft two weeks from Your memory were perhaps an infult. As for Me I fhall look upon it as a facred duty never to offend You with My prefence as long as I live. But I lay Mine undying homage at Your feet.

"MARK VAN RYCKE."

The letter dropped into her lap, for awhile she sat, staring straight into the fire.

The girl was putting away her ironing-board and folding away the linen, ranging it carefully in the press. Having made the room quite tidy, she asked timidly:

"Will the noble lady deign to take supper?"

But she had to repeat her question three times at intervals before Lenora gave answer.

"What?" she said vaguely, like one waking from a dream. "Yes!--No!--What didst say, girl?"

"Will the noble lady deign to take supper?"

"Bring me some milk and bread," replied Lenora, "and ... can I sleep here to-night?"

"In this bed," said the girl: and she pointed to the recess in the wall, where snow-white sheets and pillows seemed literally to invite repose, "if the noble lady will deign to be satisfied."

"I shall be glad to rest here," said Lenora with a woe-begone little sigh, "for I am very tired. Anon a wagon will be here with my effects and my serving woman. Send her to me directly she arrives."

Her voice was absolutely toneless and dull: she spoke like one who is infinitely weary, or in utter hopelessness: but the girl, whose kind heart ached for the beautiful lady, did not dare to offer comfort. She prepared to leave the room in order to fetch the frugal supper. Lenora turned her head once more toward the fire: her eyes caught sight of the letter which still lay in her lap. With a sudden fierce gesture she picked it up, crushed it between her fingers and threw it into the flames.

II

A few minutes later Grete came back carrying a tray with fine wheaten bread, a jar of milk, and some fresh cheese, her round young face beaming with benevolence and compassion.

"If the noble lady will deign to eat," she said, as she put the tray down upon the table, "the noble lady will feel less weary ... and then, as soon as the ox-wagon arrives with the serving woman, the noble lady could go to bed."

"Wait one moment," said Lenora, as the girl once more prepared to go, "I want a courier--now at once--to take an urgent message as far as Brussels. Can you find me one?"

"There are four butchers in the town, noble lady, who deliver all the messages for three or four leagues round. Uncle can go and see if one of them is inclined to go.... But the night is very rough...."

"I will give the man who will take my message to Brussels this night five golden ducats," said Lenora peremptorily.

Grete opened her eyes wide with astonishment.

"Five golden ducats!" she exclaimed ecstatically. Of a truth the poor trading folk of Dendermonde had never seen quite so much money all at once and in the same hand.

"I doubt not but that Michel Daens, the butcher, at the sign of the 'Calf's Head' in the Meerhem, will be glad to earn the money. And he hath a very strong horse."

"Then tell your uncle, child, to go at once to him: and to give him this letter, which he is to deliver without fail before ten o'clock this night." From the bosom of her gown she drew the letter which she had written during the previous night, and handed it to the young girl.

"The letter," she added slowly, "is for Messire don Juan de Vargas, chief of the Council of His Highness the Lieutenant-Governor. He lodges in Brussels at the sign of the 'Blue Firmament,' over against the Broodhuis. Let your uncle explain to Michel Daens, the butcher, that if this letter is not delivered before ten o'clock this evening, he will be made to suffer the severe penalty imposed by the law on all those who neglect to do their duty to the State. Take the letter, child!"

Indeed, this last peremptory order was necessary, for Grete, hearing to whom the letter was addressed, hardly dared to touch it. Indeed there would be no fear that Michel Daens would fail to execute the noble lady's commands with punctuality and utmost speed. The name of don Juan de Vargas was one that would make any man fly to the ends of the earth if ordered so to do. A message or letter to or from him would of a surety be delivered punctually, even if the heavens were on the point of falling or the earth about to open.

To Grete the name meant something more than that: it was the dreaded symbol of an awful reality--a reality which for her had meant the terrors of that awful night, when the Spanish officer threatened and insulted her and Katrine, when death or outrage stared them both in the face, and the awful catastrophe was only averted by the interference of the mysterious Leatherface.

So she took the letter which was addressed to one who was even greater, even more to be feared than the Spanish officer; she took it with a trembling hand as she would some sacred symbol: then she curtseyed and went out of the room.

Lenora rose and followed her into the passage, where she stood listening until she heard Grete calling to her uncle and aunt. The three of them then spoke together in Flemish which Lenora hardly understood; but she caught the names Michel Daens and Messire don Juan de Vargas, and then the words spoken very emphatically by Grete: "Before ten o'clock this night." Then she went back to her room, and closed the door softly behind her.

III

So, then, the die was cast. There was an end to all the irresolution, the heart-achings, the tearing of soul and nerves upon the rack of doubt and indecision. Hopeless misery and deathly bitterness filled Lenora's heart now.

She had been fooled and deceived! Fooled by soft words and cajoling ways, by lies and treachery: and she had very nearly succumbed to the monstrous deceit.

Fool! fool! that she was! She reiterated the word aloud over and over again, for there was a weird pleasure in lashing her pride with the searing thongs of that humiliating memory. Had not God Himself intervened and torn the mask from the traitor's face she might even now be lying in his arms, with the kiss of an assassin upon her lips! A shudder of loathing went right through her. She shivered as if stricken with ague, and all the while a blush of intense shame was scorching her cheeks.

Fool! Fool!

She had stood with her father beside the dead body of her lover--her lover and kinsman--and there she had registered an oath which a few cajoling words had well-nigh caused her to break. Surely the dull, aching misery which she was enduring at this moment was but a very mild punishment for her perjury.

She had allowed Ramon's murderer to cajole her with gentle words, to lull her into apathy in the face of her obvious duty to her King and to the State. He had played the part of indifference when all the while he--above all others--was steeped to the neck in treason and in rebellion! He! the spy of the Prince of Orange! the hired assassin! the miserable cowardly criminal! And she had listened to him, had sat close beside him by the hearth and allowed his arm to creep around her shoulders ... the arm which had struck Ramon down in the dark ... the arm--she no longer doubted it now--which would be hired to strike the Duke of Alva, or her own father with the same abominable treachery.

Oh! the shame of it! the hideous, abominable shame! He had guessed last night that she was on the watch, that she had seen and heard the odious plotting against the life of the Lieutenant-Governor: he had guessed, and then--by tortuous means and lying tongue--had sought to circumvent her--had lured her into this city--and then, by dint of lies and more lies and lies again, had hoped to subdue her to his will by false kisses and sacrilegious love.

And she had been on the point of sacrificing her country's needs and the life of the Duke of Alva to the blandishments of a traitor!

Oh! the shame of it! The terrible, burning shame!

But God had intervened! ... At least of this she could have no doubt. All day she had prayed for an indication from above--she had prayed for guidance, she had prayed for a sign, and it had come! Awesome, terrible and absolutely convincing. God, in unmasking the one traitor who had well-nigh touched her heart, had shown her plainly that her duty lay in unmasking them all! Traitors! traitors! every one of them! and God had given her an unmistakable sign that He desired to punish them all.

Did she neglect those signs now she would be the vilest traitor that ever defiled the earth.... It had all been so clear.... The mêlée in the streets ... Mark's interference--the blow from the halberd which had reopened the half-healed wound ... his momentary weakness and her sudden vision of the truth! ... Thank God it was not too late! The meeting was to be held this night at the house of Messire Deynoot the Procurator-General ... the Prince of Orange and all the other rebels would make the final arrangements for taking up arms against the King and murdering or capturing the Lieutenant-Governor.

This meeting, at any rate, she--Lenora--had frustrated. Mark of a surety had already warned the conspirators, before he started on the journey--and Laurence too after he received her letter.... The meeting of a certainty would be postponed. But even so, and despite all warnings, the band of assassins could not escape justice. Her letter would be in her father's hands this night: in a few hours he--and through him the Lieutenant-Governor--would know every phase of the infamous plot which had the murder of His Highness for its first aim--they would know the names of the two thousand traitors who were waiting to take up arms against the King--they would know of William of Orange's presence in Ghent, of his recruiting campaign there, of the places where he kept stores of arms and ammunition.

All that she had set forth clearly and succinctly--omitting nothing. Oh! her father would know how to act! He would know how to crush the conspiracy and punish the traitors!

Would he also know how to lay his powerful hand on the mysterious Leatherface ... the man of dark deeds and cruel, treacherous blows ... the murderer of Ramon de Linea--the one whom others paid to do the foul deeds which shunned the light of day...?

Lenora leaned back against the cushions of her chair. Physical nausea had overcome her at the thought of all that she had done. She had served the King and had served the State! She had undoubtedly saved the life of the Duke of Alva, and therefore rendered incalculable service to her country ... she was the means whereby a band of pestilential traitors and rebels would be unmasked ... and punished ... and among these she must reckon Mark van Rycke ... her husband.... Oh! him she hated with a real, personal hatred far stronger and more implacable than that wherewith she regarded--impersonally--all the enemies of the King. He seemed to her more cruel, more cowardly, more despicable than any man could be! ... Yes! she had done all that, and now her one hope was that she might die this night--having done her duty and kept her oath, and then been left unutterably lonely and wretched--in hopeless desolation.

IV

The night was rough, as Grete had foretold. Gusts of wind blew against the window-frames and made them rattle and creak with a weird and eerie sound. The rain beat against the panes and down the chimney making the fire sizzle and splutter, and putting out the merry little tongues of flame. Lenora drank some milk and tried to eat the bread, but every morsel seemed to choke her. She went to the window and drew aside the thick curtains and sat in the seat in the embrasure--for she felt restless and stifled. Anon she threw open one of the casements.

The rain beat in against her face and bare neck, but this she did not mind; she was glad to cool her head and face a little. The Grand' Place looked gloomy and dark; most of the lights in the Cloth Hall opposite were extinguished--only in a few windows they still glimmered feebly. Lenora caught herself counting those lights: there were two small ones in the dormer windows at the top, and one in a tall window in the floor below, and right down on a level with the street the main door stood wide open and showed a long, shallow streak of light. One! two! up above! they looked like eyes! Then one in the middle that was the nose--all awry and out of the centre!--and below the long mouth--like a huge grin! And the roof looked like a huge hat with the tower like a feather! The more Lenora looked into those lights opposite, the more like a grinning face did they seem, until the whole thing got on her nerves, and she started laughing! laughing! ... She laughed until her sides ached, and her eyes were full of tears! she laughed though her head was splitting with pain, and the nerves of her face ached with intolerable agony. She laughed until her laughter broke into a sob, and she fell forward with her hands upon the window sill, her burning forehead upon her hands, the rain and wind beating upon her head, her neck, her back; her hair was soon wet through; its heavy strands fell away from the pins and combs that confined them and streamed down like a golden cascade all about her shoulders, the while she sobbed out her heart in misery and wretchedness.

V

The clock of the Cloth-Hall tower chimed the ninth hour. Lenora raised her head and once more peered out into the night.

Nine o'clock! If Michel Daens had done his duty, he must be more than half-way to Brussels by now. It almost seemed to Lenora's supersensitive nerves at this moment that she could hear the tramp of his horse's hoofs upon the muddy road--Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Surely, surely she could hear it, or was it her own heart-beats that she was counting?

Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Two horses, each with a rider, were speeding along the road: one to Brussels--Michel Daens the butcher-messenger, bearing the letter for don Juan de Vargas which would raise in its trail a harvest of death for traitors ... and along the road to Ghent Mark speeding too, to warn those traitors to remain in hiding--or to flee while there was yet time--for justice Was on their track. Mark had gone to Ghent, of this Lenora was sure; she had burned his letter, but she remembered its every word. He spoke of meeting the ox-wagon which was on its way from Ghent! besides which, of course, he was bound to go back. Was he not the paid spy of the Prince of Orange--his mentor and his friend?

And mentally Lenora strained her ears to listen ... to hear which of those two riders would first reach his destination. And as she listened it seemed as if that monotonous hammer! hammer! was beating against her heart, and with every blow was crushing to death more of her life, more of her youth ... and all her hopes of happiness.

VI

Inez--tired out with the jolting of the wagon, wet to the skin, fagged and cold--found her mistress still sitting by the open window, with streaming hair and eyes glowing as with inward fever. The devoted soul very quickly forgot her own discomfort in view of her young mistress' sorry plight. She chafed the ice-cold hands and combed the dripping hair; she took off the heavy gown, and the leather shoes and silk stockings. She bathed the hot brow and little cold feet, and finally got Lenora into bed and had the satisfaction of seeing her smile.

"There now, my saint," she said cheerily, "you feel better, do you not? I tell you when I met Messire van Rycke and he told me that you were here and that we were to get to you at once, I nearly swooned with fright ... I wanted to ask him a dozen questions ... but he had ridden away out into the darkness before I could speak a single word...."

The pillow was fresh and smelt sweetly of lavender. Lenora had closed her eyes and a sense of physical well-being was--despite heart-ache and mental agony--gradually creeping into her bones.

"Where did you meet Messire van Rycke, Inez?" she asked quietly.

"Oh! a long way from here, my saint. We did not start from Ghent till four o'clock in the afternoon, and have been jogging along at foot-pace ever since. Oh! these interminable roads, and horrible, jolting wagons! It was about two hours ago that we came on Messire van Rycke riding like one possessed."

"He was riding toward Ghent?"

"Toward Ghent, my saint. And as I told you--as soon as he had given Jan his orders, he flew by like the wind. The roads were quite lonely after that. I tell you, my saint, I was passing glad that we had a good escort--two mounted men you know rode beside the wagon--or I should have been mightily afraid of malefactors."

"You gave the sealed packet to Messire Laurence van Rycke," asked Lenora, "as I had directed?"

"I gave him the packet two hours after you had started."

"And what did he say?"

"He said nothing, my saint."

With a weary sigh, Lenora turned her head away. She kept her eyes closed resolutely, and after a while Inez thought that she slept. So she tip-toed quietly out of the room, having drawn the coverlet well over her mistress' form. She left the lamp in the room, for she had enough understanding to know that Lenora was perturbed and anxious, and in times of anxiety darkness is oft an evil counsellor.

BOOK THREE: GHENT

CHAPTER XII

REPRISALS

I

It is to the seigneur de Vaernewyck--that excellent and faithful chronicler--that we are indebted for the most detailed account of all the events which occurred in the city of Ghent during those few memorable days in October.

The weather, he tells us, had been perpetually rainy, and the days were drawing in rapidly, for it was then the 19th of the month, and what with the sky so perpetually overcast it was nearly dark when close upon five o'clock in the afternoon the ensigns of the companies of Walloon soldiery first entered the city by the Waalpoort. They demanded admittance in the name of the King, the Regent and the Lieutenant-Governor, and the guard at the gate would certes never have ventured to refuse what they asked.

At first the townsfolk were vastly entertained at seeing so many troops; nothing was further from their mind than the thought that these had been sent into the city with evil intent. So the gaffers and gossips stood about in the streets and open places staring at the fine pageant, and the women and children gaped at the soldiers from the windows of their houses, all in perfect good humour and little dreaming of the terrible misery which these soldiers were bringing in their train into the beautiful city of Ghent.

No one thought of civil strife then.

In the forefront marched men and young boys who carried javelins in their hands and had round shields swung upon their arm; these shields were bordered with a rich fringe of crimson silk and they glittered like steel in the damp atmosphere. After these men came a company of halberdiers from the garrisons of Mechlin and Alost, and they looked splendid in their striped doublets, their plumed bonnets slung behind their backs, their enormous boots reaching half-way up their thighs. In the midst of them rode the Master of the Camp on his cream charger; the ends of his crimson and yellow scarf, soaked through with the rain and driven by the wind, flapped unremittingly against his steel cuirass, whilst the plumes on his felt hat hung--bedraggled--into his face.

Then came the arquebusiers, marching five abreast, and there were several thousands of them, for it took half an hour for them all to cross the bridge. These were followed by a vast number of elegant foot-soldiers carrying their huge lances upon their shoulders, well-armed, magnificently accoutred, their armour highly polished and richly engraved and wearing gauntlets and steel bonnets. Finally came three companies of artillery with culverines and falconets and with five wagons, and behind them the massed drummers and fifers who brought up the rear playing gay music as they marched.

The troops assembled on the Kouter which was thronged to overflowing with gaffers and idlers. Everyone was talking and jesting then, no one had a thought of what was to come, no one looked upon these gaily-decked troops with any sinister prescience of coming evil. They were nearly all Walloons, from the provinces of Antwerp and Brabant, and many of them spoke the Flemish tongue in addition to their own--and when after inspection they stood or walked at ease on the Kouter, the girls exchanged jests and merry sallies with them.

II

Two hours later the Duke of Alva entered the city. It was a very dark night, but the rain had left off. The Lieutenant-Governor had a company of lancers with him, and these were Spanish, every man of them. One hundred torch-bearers accompanied the Duke and his escort and they had much difficulty in keeping their torches alight in the damp night air; the flames spluttered and sizzled and the men waved the torches about so that sparks flew about in every direction to the grave danger of the peaceable citizens who were in the foremost ranks of the crowd.