"What else could have prompted it?" he asked blandly.

"Neither you ... nor ... nor any of your friends had a hand in it?" she insisted.

"I?" he exclaimed with a look of profound horror. "I?... to do you such a wrong! For what purpose, ye G.o.ds?"

"To ... to keep me out of the way...."

"I understand," he said simply. "And you, Gilda, believed this of me?"

"I believed it," she replied calmly.

"You did not realize then that I would give every drop of my blood to save you one instant's pain?"

"I did not realize," she said more coldly, "that you would give up your ambition for any woman or for anything."

"You do not believe then, that I love you?"

"Speak not of love, my lord," she retorted, "it is a sacred thing. And you methinks do not know what love is."

"Indeed you are right, Gilda," he said, "I do not know what is the love of ordinary men. But if to love you, Gilda, means that every thought, every hope, every prayer is centred upon you, if it means that neither sleep nor work, nor danger can for one single instant chase your image from my soul, if to love you means that my very sinews ache with the longing to hold you in my arms, and that every moment which keeps me from your side is torture worse than h.e.l.l; if love means all that, Gilda, then do I know to mine own hurt what love is."

"And in your ambition, my lord, you allowed that love to be smothered,"

she retorted calmly. "It is too late now to speak of it again, to any woman save to Walburg de Marnix."

"I'll speak of it to you, Gilda, while the breath in my body lasts.

Walburg de Marnix is no longer my wife. The law of our country has already set me free."

"The law of G.o.d binds you to her. I pray you speak no more of such things to me."

"You are hard and cruel, Gilda."

"I no longer love you."

"You will love again," he retorted confidently, "in the meanwhile have I regained your trust?"

"Not even that, wholly," she replied.

"Let me at least do one thing in my own justification," he pleaded.

"Allow me to prove to you now and at once that--great though my love is for you, and maddening my desire to have you near me--I could not be guilty of such an outrage, as I know that in your heart you do accuse me of."

"I did accuse you of it, my lord, I own. But how can you prove me wrong now and at once?"

"By bringing before you the only guilty person in this network of infamy," he replied hotly.

"You know him then?"

"For these three days now I and my faithful servants have tracked him. I have him here now a prisoner at last. His presence before you will prove to you that I at least bore no share in the hideous transaction."

"Of whom do you speak, my lord?" she asked.

"Of the man who dared to lay hands upon you in Haarlem...."

"He is here--now?" she exclaimed.

"A helpless prisoner in my hands," he replied, "to-morrow summary justice shall be meted out to him, and he will receive the punishment which his infamy deserves."

"But he did not act on his own initiative," she said eagerly, "another man more powerful, richer than he prompted him--paid him--tempted him...."

Stoutenburg made a gesture of infinite contempt.

"So, no doubt, he has told you, Gilda. Men of his stamp are always cowards at heart, even though they have a certain brutish instinct for fighting--mostly in self-defence. He tried to palliate his guilt before you by involving me in its responsibility."

"You," she whispered under her breath, "or one of your friends."

"You mean your brother Nicolaes," he rejoined quietly. "Ah! the man is even a more arrant knave than I thought. So! he has tried to fasten the responsibility for this outrage against your person, firstly on me who worship the very ground you walk on, secondly on the brother whom you love?"

"No, no," she protested eagerly, "I did not say that. It was I who...."

"Who thought so ill of me," broke in Stoutenburg with gentle reproach, "of me and of Nicolaes. You questioned the rogue, and he did not deny it, nay more he enlarged upon the idea, which would place all the profits of this abominable transaction in his hands and yet exonerate him from guilt. But you shall question him yourself, Gilda. By his looks, by his answers, by his att.i.tude you will be able to judge if I or Nicolaes--or any of our friends, have paid him to lay hands upon you.

Remember however," he added significantly, "that such a low-born knave will always lie to save his skin, so this do I entreat of you on my knees: judge by his looks more than by his words, and demand a proof of what he a.s.serts."

"I will judge, my lord, as I think best," she retorted coldly. "And now, I pray you, send for the man. I would like to hear what he has to say."

Stoutenburg immediately turned to obey: there was a guard outside the door, and it was easy to send one of the men with orders to Jan to bring the prisoner hither.

Within himself he was frankly taken aback at Gilda's ready acquiescence--nay obvious desire to parley with the foreigner. A sharp pang of jealousy had shot through his heart when he saw her glowing eyes, her eagerness to defend the knave. The instinct that guided his fierce love for Gilda, had quickly warned him that here was a danger of which he had never even dreamed.

Women were easily swayed, he thought, by a smooth tongue and a grand manner, both of which--Stoutenburg was bound to admit--the rogue possessed in no scanty measure. Fortunately the mischief--if indeed mischief there was--had only just begun: and of a truth reason itself argued that Gilda must loathe and despise the villain who had wronged her so deeply: moreover Stoutenburg had every hope that the coming interview if carefully conducted would open Gilda's eyes more fully still to the true character of the foreign mercenary with the unctuous tongue and the chivalrous ways.

In any case the Lord of Stoutenburg himself had nothing to fear from that interview, and he felt that his own clever words had already shaken the foundations of Gilda's mistrust of him. Mayhap in desiring to parley with the knave, she only wished to set her mind at rest finally on these matters, and also with regard to her own brother's guilt. Stoutenburg with an inward grim smile of coming triumph pa.s.sed his hand over his doublet where--in an inner pocket--reposed the parchment roll which was the last proof of Beresteyn's connivance.

Gilda did not know the cypher-signature, and the knave would have some difficulty in proving his a.s.sertion, if indeed, he dared to name Nicolaes at all: whilst if he chose to play the chivalrous part before Gilda, then the anonymous doc.u.ment would indeed prove of incalculable value. In any case the complete humiliation of the knave who had succeeded in gaining Gilda's interest, if nothing more, was Stoutenburg's chief aim when he suggested the interview, and the doc.u.ment with the enigmatical signature could easily become a powerful weapon wherewith to make that humiliation more complete.

And thus musing, speculating, scheming, the Lord of Stoutenburg sent Jan over to the molens with orders to bring the prisoner under a strong guard to the jongejuffrouw's presence, whilst Gilda, silent and absorbed, sat on in the tiny room of the miller's hut.

In spite of her loyalty, her love for her brother, in spite of Stoutenburg's smooth a.s.sertions, a burning anxiety gnawed at her heart--she felt wretchedly, miserably lonely, with a sense of treachery encompa.s.sing her all round.

But there was a strange glow upon her face, which of a truth anxiety could not have brought about; rather must it have been inward anger, which a.s.sailed her whenever thoughts of the rogue whom she so hated intruded themselves upon her brain.

No doubt too, the heat of the fire helped to enhance that delicate glow which lent so much additional beauty to her face and such additional brilliance to her eyes.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE