“In which case you are a widow sooner than you could have expected,” said Foy more cheerfully, edging himself towards her.

But Elsa moved a little away and Foy saw with a sinking of the heart that, however distasteful it might be to her, clearly she attached some weight to this marriage.

“I do not know,” she answered, “how can I tell?  I suppose that we shall hear sometime, and then, if he is still alive, I must set to work to get free of him.  But, till then, Foy,” she added, warningly, “I suppose that I am his wife in law, although I will never speak to him again.  Where are we going?”

“To Haarlem.  The Spaniards are closing in upon the city, and we dare not try to break through their lines.  Those are Spanish boats behind us.  But eat and drink a little, Elsa, then tell us your story.”

“One question first, Foy.  How did you find me?”

“We heard a woman scream twice, once far away and once near at hand, and rowing to the sound, saw someone hanging to the arm of an overturned windmill only three or four feet above the water.  Of course we knew that you had been taken to the mill; that man there told us.  Do you remember him?  But at first we could not find it in the darkness and the flood.”

Then, after she had swallowed something, Elsa told her story, while the three of them clustered round her forward of the sail, and Marsh Jan managed the helm.  When she had finished it, Martin whispered to Foy, and as though by a common impulse all four of them kneeled down upon the boards in the bottom of the boat, and returned thanks to the Almighty that this maiden, quite unharmed, had been delivered out of such manifold and terrible dangers, and this by the hands of her own friends and of the man to whom she was affianced.  When they had finished their service of thanksgiving, which was as simple as it was solemn and heartfelt, they rose, and now Elsa did not forbid that Foy should hold her hand.

“Say, sweetheart,” he asked, “is it true that you think anything of this forced marriage?”

“Hear me before you answer,” broke in Martha.  “It is no marriage at all, for none can be wed without the consent of their own will, and you gave no such consent.”

“It is no marriage,” echoed Martin, “and if it be, and I live, then the sword shall cut its knot.”

“It is no marriage,” said Foy, “for although we have not stood together before the altar, yet our hearts are wed, so how can you be made the wife of another man?”

“Dearest,” replied Elsa, when they had all spoken, “I too am sure that it is no marriage, yet a priest spoke the marriage words over me, and a ring was thrust upon my hand, so, to the law, if there be any law left in the Netherlands, I am perhaps in some sort a wife.  Therefore, before I can become wife to you these facts must be made public, and I must appeal to the law to free me, lest in days to come others should be troubled.”