He nodded, for he dared not trust himself to speak.

“How?  Where?”

“In the Poort prison at The Hague.”

“How do you know?”

“I have seen a man who helped to bury him.”

She looked up as though to ask for further details, but Dirk turned away muttering, “He is dead, he is dead, let be.”

Then she understood, nor did she ever seek to know any more.  Whatever he had suffered, at least now he was with the God he worshipped, and with the wife he lost.  Only the poor orphan, comforted by Lysbeth, crept from the chamber, and for a week was seen no more.  When she appeared again she seemed to be herself in all things, only she never smiled and was very indifferent to what took place about her.  Thus she remained for many days.

Although this demeanour on Elsa’s part was understood and received with sympathy and more by the rest of the household, Adrian soon began to find it irksome and even ridiculous.  So colossal was this young man’s vanity that he was unable quite to understand how a girl could be so wrapped up in the memories of a murdered father, that no place was left in her mind for the tendernesses of a present adorer.  After all, this father, what was he?  A middle-aged and, doubtless, quite uninteresting burgher, who could lay claim to but one distinction, that of great wealth, most of which had been amassed by his ancestors.

Now a rich man alive has points of interest, but a rich man dead is only interesting to his heirs.  Also, this Brant was one of these narrow-minded, fanatical, New Religion fellows who were so wearisome to men of intellect and refinement.  True, he, Adrian, was himself of that community, for circumstances had driven him into the herd, but oh! he found them a dreary set.  Their bald doctrines of individual effort, of personal striving to win a personal redemption, did not appeal to him; moreover, they generally ended at the stake.  Now about the pomp and circumstance of the Mother Church there was something attractive.  Of course, as a matter of prejudice he attended its ceremonials from time to time and found them comfortable and satisfying.  Comfortable also were the dogmas of forgiveness to be obtained by an act of penitential confession, and the sense of a great supporting force whose whole weight was at the disposal of the humblest believer.

In short, there was nothing picturesque about the excellent departed Hendrik, nothing that could justify the young woman in wrapping herself up in grief for him to the entire exclusion of a person who was picturesque and ready, at the first opportunity, to wrap himself up in her.

After long brooding, assisted by a close study of the romances of the period, Adrian convinced himself that in all this there was something unnatural, that the girl must be under a species of spell which in her own interest ought to be broken through.  But how?  That was the question.  Try as he would he could do nothing.  Therefore, like others in a difficulty, he determined to seek the assistance of an expert, namely, Black Meg, who, among her other occupations, for a certain fee payable in advance, was ready to give advice as a specialist in affairs of the heart.