“You swore, you swore,” she gasped, “you swore before God!”

“Quite so, and I shall leave—­the Power you refer to—­to manage the matter.  Doubtless He can attend to His own affairs—­I must attend to mine.  I hope that about seven o’clock this evening will suit you, by which time the priest and—­a bridegroom will be ready.”

Then Elsa broke down.

“Devil!” she cried in the torment of her despair.  “To save my honour I have betrayed my father’s trust; I have betrayed the secret for which Martin was ready to die by torment, and given him over to be hunted like a wild beast.  Oh!  God forgive me, and God help me!”

“Doubtless, dear young lady, He will do the first, for your temptations were really considerable; I, who have more experience, outwitted you, that was all.  Possibly, also, He may do the second, though many have uttered that cry unheard.  For my own sake, I trust that He was sleeping when you uttered yours.  But it is your affair and His; I leave it to be arranged between you.  Till this evening, Jufvrouw,” and he bowed himself from the room.

But Elsa, shamed and broken-hearted, threw herself upon the bed and wept.

At mid-day she arose, hearing upon the stair the step of the woman who brought her food, and to hide her tear-stained face went to the barred lattice and looked out.  The scene was dismal indeed, for the wind had veered suddenly, the snow had ceased, and in place of it rain was falling with a steady persistence.  When the woman had gone, Elsa washed her face, and although her appetite turned from it, ate of the food, knowing how necessary it was that she should keep her strength.

Another hour passed, and there came a knock on the door.  Elsa shuddered, for she thought that Ramiro had returned to torment her.  Indeed it was almost a relief when, instead of him, appeared his son.  Once glance at Adrian’s nervous, shaken face, yes, and even the sound of his uncertain step brought hope to her heart.  Her woman’s instinct told her that now she had no longer to do with the merciless and terrible Ramiro, to whose eyes she was but a pretty pawn in a game that he must win, but with a young man who loved her, and whom she held, therefore, at a disadvantage—­with one, moreover, who was harassed and ashamed, and upon whose conscience, therefore, she might work.  She turned upon him, drawing herself up, and although she was short and Adrian was tall, of a sudden he felt as though she towered over him.

“Your pleasure?” asked Elsa.

In the old days Adrian would have answered with some magnificent compliment, or far-fetched simile lifted from the pages of romancers.  In truth he had thought of several such while, like a half-starved dog seeking a home, he wandered round and round the mill-house in the snow.  But he was now far beyond all rhetoric or gallantries.

“My father wished,” he began humbly—­“I mean that I have come to speak to you about—­our marriage.”