“Adrian, is this so?” asked Dirk in the silence which followed.

“No, stepfather,” answered Adrian.

“You hear,” said Dirk addressing Foy.  “In future, son, I trust that you will be more careful with your words.  It is no charge to bring lightly against a man that he has been seen in the fellowship of one of the most infamous wretches in Leyden, a creature whose hands are stained red with the blood of innocent men and women, and who, as your mother knows, once brought me near to the scaffold.”

Suddenly the laughing boyish look passed out of the face of Foy, and it grew stern.

“I am sorry for my words,” he said, “since Black Meg does other things besides spying, and Adrian may have had business of his own with her which is no affair of mine.  But, as they are spoke, I can’t eat them, so you must decide which of us is—­not truthful.”

“Nay, Foy, nay,” interposed Arentz, “do not put it thus.  Doubtless there is some mistake, and have I not told you before that you are over rash of tongue?”

“Yes, and a great many other things,” answered Foy, “every one of them true, for I am a miserable sinner.  Well, all right, there is a mistake, and it is,” he added, with an air of radiant innocency that somehow was scarcely calculated to deceive, “that I was merely poking a stick into Adrian’s temper.  I never saw him talking to Black Meg.  Now, are you satisfied?”

Then the storm broke, as Elsa, who had been watching the face of Adrian while he listened to Foy’s artless but somewhat fatuous explanation, saw that it must break.

“There is a conspiracy against me,” said Adrian, who had grown white with rage; “yes, everything has conspired against me to-day.  First the ragamuffins in the street make a mock of me, and then my hawk is killed.  Next it chances that I rescue this lady and her companions from robbers in the wood.  But, do I get any thanks for this?  No, I come home to find that I am so much forgotten that no place is even laid for me at table; more, to be jeered at for the humble services that I have done.  Lastly, I have the lie given to me, and without reproach, by my brother, who, were he not my brother, should answer for it at the sword’s point.”

“Oh!  Adrian, Adrian,” broke in Foy, “don’t be a fool; stop before you say something you will be sorry for.”

“That isn’t all,” went on Adrian, taking no heed.  “Whom do I find at this table?  The worthy Heer Arentz, a minister of the New Religion.  Well, I protest.  I belong to the New Religion myself, having been brought up in that faith, but it must be well known that the presence of a pastor here in our house exposes everybody to the risk of death.  If my stepfather and Foy choose to take that risk, well and good, but I maintain that they have no right to lay its consequences upon my mother, whose eldest son I am, nor even upon myself.”