GILDA caught sight of her beloved the moment she entered. To say that their eyes met would indeed be folly. Certain it is, however, that the blind man turned his sightless gaze in her direction. She only gave a gasp, pressed her hands to her heart as if the pain there was unendurable, and at the moment even the beauty of her face was marred by the look of soul-racking misery in her eyes and the quivering lines around her mouth.
The next moment, even while Jan and the soldiers retired, closing the doors behind them, she was in her husband's arms. Ay, even though Stoutenburg tried to intercept her. She did not hear his mocking laugh, or her brother's vigorous protest, nor yet her father's cry of horror. She just clung to him who, blind, fallen, degraded an you will, was still the beloved of her heart, the man to whom she had dedicated her soul.
She swallowed her tears, too proud to allow those who had wrought his ruin to see how mortally she was hurt.
She passed her delicate hands, fragrant as the petals of flowers, over his grimy face, those poor, stricken eyes, the noble brow so deeply furrowed with pain. She murmured words of endearment and of tenderness such as a mother might find to soothe the trouble of a suffering child. All in a moment. Stoutenburg had not even the time to interfere, to utter the savage oaths which rose from his vengeful heart at sight of the loving pity which this beautiful woman lavished on so contemptible an object.
Nor had the blind man time to encircle that exquisite form in his trembling arms. He had put them out at first, with a pathetic gesture of infinite longing. It was just a flash, a vision of his past self, an oblivion of the hideous, appalling present. Her arms at that moment were round his neck, her head against his breast, her soft, fair hair against his lips.
2
Then something happened. A magnetic current seemed to pass through the air. Diogenes freed himself with a sudden jerk from Gilda's clinging arms, staggered back against the table, swaying on his feet and uttering an inane laugh; whilst she, left standing alone, turned wide, bewildered eyes on her brother Nicolaes, who happened to be close to her at the moment. I think that she was near to unconsciousness then, and that she would have fallen, but that the burgomaster stepped quickly to her side and put his arms round her.
"May God punish you," he muttered between his teeth, and turned to Stoutenburg, who had watched the whole scene with a sinister scowl, "for this wanton and unnecessary cruelty!"
"You wrong me, mynheer," Stoutenburg retorted, with a shrug "I but tried to make your daughter's decision easier for her."
Then, as the burgomaster made no reply, but, with grim, set look on his face, drew his daughter gently down to the nearest chair, Stoutenburg went on lightly, speaking directly to Gilda:
"In the course of my travels, mejuffrouw, I came across a wise philosopher in Italy. He was a man whom an adverse fate had robbed of most things that he held precious; but he told me that he had quite succeeded in conquering adversity by the following means. He would gaze dispassionately on the objects of his past desires, see their defects, appraise them at their just value, and in every case he found that their loss was not so irreparable as he had originally believed."
"A fine moral lesson, my lord," the burgomaster interposed, seeing that Gilda either would not or could not speak as yet. "But I do not see its point."
" 'Tis a simple one, mynheer," Stoutenburg retorted coldly. "I pray you, look on the man to whom, an you had your way, you would even now link your daughter."
Instinctively Beresteyn turned his lowering gaze in the direction to which his lordship now pointed with a persuasive gesture. Diogenes was standing beside the table, his powerful frame drawn up to its full height, his sightless eyes blinking and gleaming with weird inconsequence in the flickering light of the candles. His hands were clasped behind his back, and on his face there was a curious expression which the burgomaster was not shrewd enough to define -- one of self-deprecation, yet withal of introspection and of detachment, as if the helpless body alone were present and the mind had gone a-roaming in the land of dreams. The burgomaster tried manfully to conceal the look of half-contemptuous pity which, much against his will, had crept into his eyes.
"The man," he rejoined calmly, "is what Fate and a dastard's hand have made him, my lord. Many a fine work of God hath been marred by an evildoer's action."
"That is as may be mynheer," Stoutenburg riposted coolly. "But 'tis of the present and of the future you have to think now -- not of the past."
"Even so, my lord, I would sooner see my daughter in the arms of the stricken lion than in those of a wily jackal."
"Am I the wily jackal?" Stoutenburg put in, with a sneer. Then, as the burgomaster made no reply, he added tersely: "I see that the jongejuffrouw hath told you ---"
"Everything," Beresteyn assented calmly.
"And that I await your blessing on our union?"
"My blessing you cannot have, my lord, as you well know," the burgomaster retorted firmly. " 'Twas blasphemy to invoke the name of God on such an unholy alliance. My daughter is the lawfully wedded wife of an English gentleman, Sir Percy Blakeney by name, and until the law of this country doth sever those bonds she cannot wed another."
Stoutenburg gave a strident laugh.
"That is, indeed, unfortunate for the English gentleman with the high-sounding name," he said, with a sneer, "whom I gravely suspect of being naught but the common varlet whom we all know so well in Haarlem. But, gentleman or churl," he added, with a cynical shrug, " ' tis all one to me. He hangs to-morrow, unless ---"
A loud cry of burning indignation escaped the burgomaster's lips.
"You would not further provoke the wrath of God," he exclaimed, "by this foul and cowardly crime!"
"And why not, I pray you?" the other coolly retorted. "Nor do I think that the Almighty would greatly care what happened to this drunken knave. The refuse of human kind, the halt, the lame, and the blind, are best out of the way."
"A man, my lord," the burgomaster protested, "Who when he had you in his power, generously spared your life!"
"The more fool he!" Stoutenburg riposted drily. " 'Tis my turn now. He hangs to-morrow, unless, indeed ---"
"Unless, what, my lord?"
"Unless," Stoutenburg went on, with an evil leer, "my future wife will deign to plead with me for him -- with a kiss."
A groan like that of a wounded beast broke from the burgomaster's heavy heart. For a moment a light that was almost murderous gleamed in his eyes. His fists were clenched; he murmured a dark threat against the man who goaded him wellnigh to madness. Then, suddenly, he met Stoutenburg's mocking glance fixed upon him, and a huge sob rose in his throat, almost choking him. Gilda, with a pitiful moan, had hidden her face against her father's sleeve.
" 'Tis but anticipating the happy time by a few hours," Stoutenburg went on, with calm cynicism. "But I have a fancy to hold my future wife in my arms now -- at this moment -- and to grant her in exchange for her first willing kiss the life of a miserable wretch whose life or death are, in truth, of no account to me."
He took a step or two forward in the direction where Gilda sat, clinging with desperate misery to her father. Then, as the burgomaster, superb with indignation, grand in his dignity, Instinctively interposed his burly figure between his daughter and the man whom she loathed, Stoutenburg added, with well-assumed carelessness:
"If the jongejuffrouw prefers to put off the happy moment until we are alone in my camp to-morrow, we'll say no more about it. Let the rogue hang; I care not!"
"My lord," -- the burgomaster spoke once more in a vigorous protest, which, alas, he knew to be futile -- "what you suggest is monstrous, inhuman! God will never permit ---"
"I pray you, mynheer," Stoutenburg broke in fiercely, "let us leave the Almighty out of our affairs. I have read my Bible as assiduously as you when I was younger, and in it I learned that God hath enjoined all wives to submit themselves to their husbands. A kiss from my betrothed, a word or gentle pleading, are little enough