“Yes, yes,” groaned Adrian.

“Very good.  Now here is the pen.  Sign.”

So Adrian signed.

“I congratulate you upon your discretion, pupil,” remarked Ramiro, as he scattered sand on the writing and pocketed the paper.  “To-day you have learned a very useful lesson which life teaches to most of us, namely, that the inevitable must rule our little fancies.  Let us see; I think that by now the soldiers will have executed their task, so, as you have done what I wished, you can go, for I shall know where to find you if I want you.  But, if you will take my advice, which I offer as that of one friend to another, you will hold your tongue about the events of this afternoon.  Unless you speak of it, nobody need ever know that you have furnished certain useful information, for in the Gevangenhuis the names of witnesses are not mentioned to the accused.  Otherwise you may possibly come into trouble with your heretical friends and relatives.  Good afternoon.  Brother, be so good as to open the door for this gentleman.”

A minute later Adrian found himself in the street, towards which he had been helped by the kick of a heavy boot.  His first impulse was to run, and he ran for half a mile or more without stopping, till at length he paused breathless in a deserted street, and, leaning against the wheel of an unharnessed waggon, tried to think.  Think!  How could he think?  His mind was one mad whirl; rage, shame, disappointed passion, all boiled in it like bones in a knacker’s cauldron.  He had been fooled, he had lost his love, and, oh! infamy, he had betrayed his kindred to the hell of the Inquisition.  They would be tortured and burnt.  Yes, even his mother and Elsa might be burned, since those devils respected neither age nor sex, and their blood would be upon his head.  It was true that he had signed under compulsion, but who would believe that, for had they not taken down his talk word for word?  For once Adrian saw himself as he was; the cloaks of vanity and self-love were stripped from his soul, and he knew what others would think when they came to learn the story.  He thought of suicide; there was water, here was steel, the deed would not be difficult.  No, he could not; it was too horrible.  Moreover, how dared he enter the other world so unprepared, so steeped in every sort of evil?  What, then, could he do to save his character and those whom his folly had betrayed?  He looked round him; there, not three hundred yards away, rose the tall chimney of the factory.  Perhaps there was yet time; perhaps he could still warn Foy and Martin of the fate which awaited them.

Acting on the impulse of the moment, Adrian started forward, running like a hare.  As he approached the building he saw that the workmen had left, for the big doors were shut.  He raced round to the small entrance; it was open—­he was through it, and figures were moving in the office.  God be praised!  They were Foy and Martin.  To them he sped, a white-faced creature with gaping mouth and staring eyes, to look at more like a ghost than a human being.