"Lenora," he said after awhile, "it is impossible for me to say anything for the moment. Fate and your father's cruelty have dealt me a blow which has half-stunned me. As you say, I must think-I am not going to give up hope quite as readily as your father seems to think. By our Lady! I am not just an old glove that can so lightly be cast aside. I must think … I must devise… But in the meanwhile…"
He paused and something of that same look of fear came into his eyes which had been there when in the Council Chamber he had dreaded the Duke of Alva'a censure.
"In the meanwhile, my sweet," he added hastily, "you must pretend to obey. You cannot openly defy your father! … nor yet the Duke of Alva. You know them both! They are men who know neither pity nor mercy! Your father would punish you if you disobeyed him … he has the means of compelling you to obey. But the Duke's wrath would fall with deathly violence upon me. You know as well as I do that he would sacrifice me ruthlessly if he felt that I was likely to interfere with any of his projects: and your marriage with the Netherlander is part of one of his vast schemes."
The look of terror became more marked upon his face, his dark skin had become almost livid in hue: and Lenora clung to him, trembling, for she knew that everything he said was true. They were like two birds caught in the net of a remorseless fowler: to struggle for freedom were worse than useless. De Vargas was a man who had attained supreme power beside the most absolute tyrant the world had ever known. Every human being around him-even his only child-was a mere pawn in his hands for the great political game in which the Duke of Alva was the chief player-a mere tool for the fashioning of that monstrous chain which was destined to bind the Low Countries to the chariot-wheels of Spain. A useless tool, a superfluous pawn he would throw away without a pang of remorse: this don Ramon knew and so did Lenora-but in Ramon that knowledge reigned supreme and went hand in hand with terror, whilst in the young girl there was all the desire to defy that knowledge and to make a supreme fight for love and happiness.
"I must not stay any longer now, my sweet," he said after awhile, "if your father has so absolutely forbidden you to see me, then I have tarried here too long already."
He rose and gently disengaged himself from the tender hands which clung so pathetically to him.
"I can't let you go, Ramon," she implored, "it seems as if you were going right out of my life-and that my life would go with you if you went."
"Sweetheart," he said a little impatiently, "it is dangerous for me to stay a moment longer. Try and be brave-I'll not say farewell-We'll meet again…"
"How?"
"Let Inez be at the corner of the Broodhuis this evening. I'll give her a letter for you. In the meanwhile I shall have seen your father. Who knows his decision may not be irrevocable-after all you are the one being in the world he has to love and to care for; he cannot wilfully break your heart and destroy your happiness."
She shook her head dejectedly. But the next moment she looked up trying to seem hopeful. She believed that he suffered just as acutely as she did, and, womanlike, did not want to add to his sorrow by letting him guess too much of her own. She contrived to keep back her tears; she had shed so many of late that their well-spring had mayhap run dry: he folded her in his arms, for she was exquisitely beautiful and he really loved her. Marriage with her would have been both blissful and advantageous, and his pride was sorely wounded at the casual treatment meted out to him by de Vargas: at the same time the thought of defiance never once entered his head-for defiance could only end in death, and don Ramon felt quite sure that even if he lost his beautiful fiancée, life still held many compensations for him in the future.
Therefore he was able to part from Lenora with a light heart, whilst hers was overweighted with sorrow. He kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips, and murmured protestations of deathless love which only enhanced her grief and enflamed all that selfless ardour of which her passionate nature was capable. Never had she loved don Ramon de Linea as she loved him at this hour of parting-never perhaps would she love as fondly again.
And he with a last, tender kiss, airily bade her to be brave and trustful, and finally waved her a cheery farewell.
CHAPTER II
THE SUBJECT RACE
"I cannot do it, mother, I cannot! The very shame of it would kill me!"
Laurence van Rycke sat on a low chair in front of the fire, his elbow propped on his knee, his chin buried in his hand. His mother gave a little shiver, and drew her woollen shawl closer round her shoulders.
"You cannot go against your father's will," she said tonelessly, like one who has even lost the power to suffer acutely. "God alone knows what would become of us all if you did."
"He can only kill me," retorted Laurence, with fierce, passionate resentment.
"And how should I survive if he did?"
"Would you not rather see me dead, mother dear, than wedded to a woman whose every thought, every aspiration must tend toward the further destruction of our country-she the daughter of the most hideous tyrant that has ever defamed this earth-more hideous even than that execrable Alva himself…"
He paused abruptly in the midst of this passionate outburst, for the old house-which had been so solemn and silent awhile ago, suddenly echoed from end to end with loud and hilarious sounds, laughter and shouts, heavy footsteps, jingle of spurs and snatches of song, immediately followed by one or two piteous cries uttered in a woman's piercing voice. Laurence van Rycke jumped to his feet.
"What was that?" he cried, and made a dash for the door. His mother's imploring cry called him back.
"No, no, Laurence! don't go!" she begged. "It is only the soldiers! They tease Jeanne, and she gets very cross! … We have six men and a sergeant quartered here now, besides the commandant…"
"Eight Spanish soldiers in the house of the High-Bailiff of Ghent!" exclaimed Laurence, and a prolonged laugh of intense bitterness came from his overburdened heart. "Oh God!" he added, as he stretched out his arms with a gesture of miserable longing and impotence, "to endure all this outrage and all this infamy! – to know as we do, what has happened in Mons and Mechlin and to be powerless to do anything-anything against such hideous, appalling, detestable tyranny-to feel every wrong and every injustice against the country one loves, against one's own kith and kin, eating like the plague into one's very bones and to remain powerless, inert, an insentient log in the face of it all. And all the while to be fawning-always fawning and cringing, kissing the master's hand that wields the flail… Ugh! And now this new tyranny, this abominable marriage… Ye Heavens above me! but mine own cowardice in accepting it would fill me with unspeakable loathing!"
"Laurence, for pity's sake!" implored the mother.
At her call he ran to her and knelt at her feet: then burying his head in his hands he sobbed like a child.
"I cannot do it, mother!" he reiterated piteously, "I cannot do it. I would far rather die!"
With gentle, mechanical touch she stroked his unruly fair hair, and heavy tears rolled down her wan cheeks upon her thin, white hands.
"Just think of it, mother dear," resumed Laurence a little more calmly after a while, "would it not be introducing a spy into our very home? … and just now … at the time when we all have so much at stake … the Prince…"
"Hush, Laurence!" implored the mother; and this time she placed an authoritative hand upon his arm and gave it a warning pressure; but her wan cheeks had become a shade paler than before, and the look of terror became more marked in her sunken eyes.
"Even these walls have ears these days," she added feebly.
"There is no danger here, mother darling … nobody can hear," he said reassuringly. But nevertheless he, too, cast a quick look of terror into the remote corners of the room and dropped his voice to a whisper when he spoke again.
"Juan de Vargas'