There came a pause.

“What will happen to him?” asked Lysbeth.

“After—­after the usual painful preliminaries to discover accomplices, I presume the stake, but possibly, as he has the freedom of Leyden, he might get off with hanging.”

“Is there no escape?”

Montalvo walked to the window, and looking out of it remarked that he thought it was going to snow.  Then suddenly he wheeled round, and staring hard at Lysbeth asked,

“Are you really interested in this heretic, and do you desire to save him?”

Lysbeth heard and knew at once that the buttons were off the foils.  The bantering, whimsical tone was gone.  Now her tormentor’s voice was stern and cold, the voice of a man who was playing for great stakes and meant to win them.

She also gave up fencing.

“I am and I do,” she answered.

“Then it can be done—­at a price.”

“What price?”

“Yourself in marriage within three weeks.”

Lysbeth quivered slightly, then sat still.

“Would not my fortune do instead?” she asked.

“Oh! what a poor substitute you offer me,” Montalvo said, with a return to his hateful banter.  Then he added, “That offer might be considered were it not for the abominable laws which you have here.  In practice it would be almost impossible for you to hand over any large sum, much of which is represented by real estate, to a man who is not your husband.  Therefore I am afraid I must stipulate that you and your possessions shall not be separated.”

Again Lysbeth sat silent.  Montalvo, watching her with genuine interest, saw signs of rebellion, perchance of despair.  He saw the woman’s mental and physical loathing of himself conquering her fears for Dirk.  Unless he was much mistaken she was about to defy him, which, as a matter of fact, would have proved exceedingly awkward, as his pecuniary resources were exhausted.  Also on the very insufficient evidence which he possessed he would not have dared to touch Dirk, and thus to make himself a thousand powerful enemies.

“It is strange,” he said, “that the irony of circumstances should reduce me to pleading for a rival.  But, Lysbeth van Hout, before you answer I beg you to think.  Upon the next movements of your lips it depends whether that body you love shall be stretched upon the rack, whether those eyes which you find pleasant shall grow blind with agony in the darkness of a dungeon, and whether that flesh which you think desirable shall scorch and wither in the furnace.  Or, on the other hand, whether none of these things shall happen, whether this young man shall go free, to be for a month or two a little piqued—­a little bitter—­about the inconstancy of women, and then to marry some opulent and respected heretic.  Surely you could scarcely hesitate.  Oh! where is the self-sacrificing spirit of the sex of which we hear so much?  Choose.”

Still there was no answer.  Montalvo, playing his trump card, drew from his vest an official-looking document, sealed and signed.