“I had rather it had been to-night,” said Lysbeth.  “While we are in Leyden with that man we are not safe from one hour to the next.”

“Wife, we are never safe.  It is all in the hands of God, and, therefore, we should live like soldiers awaiting the hour to march, and rejoice exceedingly when it pleases our Captain to sound the call.”

“I know,” she answered; “but, oh!  Dirk, it would be hard—­to part.”

He turned his head aside for a moment, then said in a steady voice, “Yes, wife, but it will be sweet to meet again and part no more.”

While it was still early that morning Dirk summoned Foy and Martin to his wife’s chamber.  Adrian for his own reasons he did not summon, making the excuse that he was still asleep, and it would be a pity to disturb him; nor Elsa, since as yet there was no necessity to trouble her.  Then, briefly, for he was given to few words, he set out the gist of the matter, telling them that the man Ramiro whom they had beaten on the Haarlemer Meer was in Leyden, which Foy knew already, for Elsa had told him as much, and that he was no other than the Spaniard named the Count Juan de Montalvo, the villain who had deceived Lysbeth into a mock marriage by working on her fears, and who was the father of Adrian.  All this time Lysbeth sat in a carved oak chair listening with a stony face to the tale of her own shame and betrayal.  She made no sign at all beyond a little twitching of her fingers, till Foy, guessing what she suffered in her heart, suddenly went to his mother and kissed her.  Then she wept a few silent tears, for an instant laid her hand upon his head as though in blessing, and, motioning him back to his place, became herself again—­stern, unmoved, observant.

Next Dirk, taking up his tale, spoke of his wife’s fears, and of her belief that there was a plot to wring out of them the secret of Hendrik Brant’s treasure.

“Happily,” he said, addressing Foy, “neither your mother nor I, nor Adrian, nor Elsa, know that secret; you and Martin know it alone, you and perhaps one other who is far away and cannot be caught.  We do not know it, and we do not wish to know it, and whatever happens to any of us, it is our earnest hope that neither of you will betray it, even if our lives, or your lives, hang upon the words, for we hold it better that we should keep our trust with a dead man at all costs than that we should save ourselves by breaking faith.  Is it not so, wife?”

“It is so,” answered Lysbeth hoarsely.

“Have no fear,” said Foy.  “We will die before we betray.”

“We will try to die before we betray,” grumbled Martin in his deep voice, “but flesh is frail and God knows.”

“Oh!  I have no doubt of you, honest man,” said Dirk with a smile, “for you have no mother and father to think of in this matter.”

“Then, master, you are foolish,” replied Martin, “for I repeat it—­flesh is frail, and I always hated the look of a rack.  However, I have a handsome legacy charged upon this treasure, and perhaps the thought of that would support me.  Alive or dead, I should not like to think of my money being spent by any Spaniard.”