The man saluted again and went out of the door.  After him followed Lysbeth.  She spoke no more, but as she passed she looked at Montalvo, and he knew well that though she might be gone, yet her curse remained behind.

The plague was on her, the plague was on her, her head and bones were racked with pain, and the swords of sorrow pierced her poor heart.  But Lysbeth’s mind was still clear, and her limbs still supported her.  She reached her home and walked upstairs to the sitting room, commanding the servant to find the Heer Adrian and bid him join her there.

In the room was Elsa, who ran to her crying,

“Is it true?  Is it true?”

“It is true, daughter, that Foy and Martin have escaped——­”

“Oh!  God is good!” wept the girl.

“And that my husband is a prisoner and condemned to death.”

“Ah!” gasped Elsa, “I am selfish.”

“It is natural that a woman should think first of the man she loves.  No, do not come near me; I fear that I am stricken with the pest.”

“I am not afraid of that,” answered Elsa.  “Did I never tell you?  As a child I had it in The Hague.”

“That, at least, is good news among much that is very ill; but be silent, here comes Adrian, to whom I wish to speak.  Nay, you need not leave us; it is best that you should learn the truth.”

Presently Adrian entered, and Elsa, watching everything, noticed that he looked sadly changed and ill.

“You sent for me, mother,” he began, with some attempt at his old pompous air.  Then he caught sight of her face and was silent.

“I have been to the Gevangenhuis, Adrian,” she said, “and I have news to tell you.  As you may have heard, your brother Foy and our servant Martin have escaped, I know not whither.  They escaped out of the very jaws of worse than death, out of the torture-chamber, indeed, by killing that wretch who was known as the Professor, and the warden of the gate, Martin carrying Foy, who is wounded, upon his back.”

“I am indeed rejoiced,” cried Adrian excitedly.

“Hypocrite, be silent,” hissed his mother, and he knew that the worst had overtaken him.

“My husband, your stepfather, has not escaped; he is in the prison still, for there I have just bidden him farewell, and the sentence upon him is that he shall be starved to death in a cell overlooking the kitchen.”

“Oh! oh!” cried Elsa, and Adrian groaned.

“It was my good, or my evil, fortune,” went on Lysbeth, in a voice of ice, “to see the written evidence upon which my husband, your brother Foy, and Martin were condemned to death, on the grounds of heresy, rebellion, and the killing of the king’s servants.  At the foot of it, duly witnessed, stands the signature of—­Adrian van Goorl.”

Elsa’s jaw fell.  She stared at the traitor like one paralysed, while Adrian, seizing the back of a chair, rested upon it, and rocked his body to and fro.