"How much did she hear think you?" asked Stoutenburg at last.
He had replaced his sword in his scabbard with a gesture that expressed his own sense of fatality. He could not use his sword against a woman — even had that woman not been Gilda Beresteyn.
"She cannot have heard much," said one of the others, "we spoke in whispers."
"If she had heard anything she would have known that only the west door was to remain open. Yet she has made straight for the north portal," suggested another.
"If she did not hear the verger speaking she could not have heard what we said," argued a third somewhat lamely.
Every one of them had some suggestion to put forward, some surmise to express, some hope to urge. Only Beresteyn said nothing. He had stood by, fierce and silent ever since he had first recognized his sister; beneath his lowering brows the resolve had not died out of his eyes, and he still held his sword unsheathed in his hand.
Stoutenburg now appealed directly to him.
"What do you think of it, Beresteyn?" he asked.
"I think that my sister did hear something of our conversation," he answered quietly.
"Great God!" ejaculated the others.
"But," added Beresteyn slowly, "I pledge you mine oath that she will not betray us."
"How will you make sure of that?" retorted Stoutenburg, not without a sneer.
"That is mine affair."
"And ours too. We can do nothing, decide on nothing until we are sure."
"Then I pray you wait for me here," concluded Beresteyn. "I will bring you a surety before we part this night."
"Let me go and speak to her," urged Stoutenburg.
"No, no, 'tis best that I should go."
Stoutenburg made a movement as if he would detain him, then seemed to think better of it, and finally let him go.
Beresteyn did not wait for further comment from his friends but quickly turned on his heel. The next moment he was speeding away across the vast edifice and his tall figure was soon swallowed up by the gloom.
CHAPTER V
BROTHER AND SISTER
The verger on guard at the west door had quietly dropped to sleep. He did not wake apparently when Jongejuffrouw Beresteyn slipped past him and out through the door.
Beresteyn followed close on his sister's heels. He touched her shoulder just as she stood outside the portal, wrapping her fur cloak more snugly over her shoulders and looking round her, anxious where to find her servants.
"'Tis late for you to be out this night, Gilda," he said, "and alone."
"I am only alone for the moment," she replied quietly. "Maria and Jakob and Piet are waiting for me at the north door. I did not know it would be closed."
"But why are you so late?"
"I stayed in church after the service."
"But why?" he insisted more impatiently.
"I could not pray during service," she said. "My thoughts wandered. I wanted to be alone for a few moments with God."
"Did you not know then that you were not alone?"
"No. Not at first."
"But ... afterwards...?"
"Your voice, Nicolaes, struck on my ear. I did not want to hear. I wanted to pray."
"Yet you listened?"
"No. I did not wish to listen."
"But you heard?"
She gave no actual reply, but he could see her profile straight and white, the curved lips firmly pressed together, the brow slightly puckered, and from the expression of her face and of her whole attitude, he knew that she had heard.
He drew in his breath, like one who has received a blow and has not yet realized how deeply it would hurt. His right hand which was resting on his hip tore at the cloth of his doublet, else mayhap it would already have wandered to the hilt of his sword.
He had expected it of course. Already when he saw Gilda gliding out of the shadows with that awed, tense expression on her face, he knew that she must have heard ... something at least ... something that had horrified her to the soul.
But now of course there was no longer any room for doubt. She had heard everything and the question was what that knowledge, lodged in her brain, might mean to him and to his friends.
Just for a moment the frozen, misty atmosphere took on a reddish hue, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, a cold sweat broke out upon his forehead.
He looked around him furtively, fearfully, wondering whence came that hideous, insinuating whisper which was freezing the marrow in his bones. No doubt that had she spoken then, had she reproached or adjured, he would have found it impossible to regain mastery over himself. But she looked so unimpassioned, so still, so detached, that self-control came back to him, and for the moment she was safe.
"Will you tell me what you did hear?" he asked after awhile, with seeming calm, though he felt as if his words must choke him, and her answer strike him dead.
"I heard," she said, speaking very slowly and very quietly, "that the Lord of Stoutenburg has returned, and is trying to drag you and others into iniquity to further his own ambitious schemes."
"You wrong him there, Gilda. The Lord of Stoutenburg has certain wrongs to avenge which cry aloud to Heaven."
"We will not argue about that, Nicolaes," she said coldly. "Murder is hideous, call it what you will. The brand of Cain doth defame a man and carries its curse with it. No man can justify so dastardly a crime. 'Tis sophistry to suggest it."
"Then in sending Barneveld to the scaffold did the Prince of Orange call that curse upon himself, a curse which — please the God of vengeance! — will come home to him now at last."
"'Tis not for you, Nicolaes, to condemn him, who has heaped favours, kindness, bounties upon our father and upon us. 'Tis not for you, the Stadtholder's debtor for everything you are, for everything that you possess, 'tis not for you to avenge Barneveld's wrongs."
"'Tis not for you, my sister," he retorted hotly, "to preach to me your elder brother. I alone am responsible for mine actions, and have no account to give to any one."
"You owe an account of your actions to your father and to me, Nicolaes, since your dishonour will fall upon us too."
"Take care, Gilda, take care!" he exclaimed hoarsely, "you speak of things which are beyond your ken, but in speaking them you presume on my forebearance ... and on your sex."
"There is no one in sight," she said calmly, "you may strike me without fear. One crime more or less on your conscience will soon cease to trouble you."
"Gilda!" he cried with sudden passionate reproach.
At this involuntary cry — in which the expression of latent affection for her struggled with that of his rage and of his burning anxiety — all her own tender feelings for him, her womanliness, her motherly instincts were re-awakened in an instant. They had only been dormant for awhile, because of her horror of what she had heard. And that horror of a monstrous deed, that sense of shame that he — her brother — should be so ready to acquiesce in a crime had momentarily silenced the call of sisterly love. But this love once re-awakened was strong enough to do battle in her heart on his behalf: the tense rigidity of her attitude relaxed, her mouth softened, her eyes filled with tears. The next moment