“Good day to you, Lysbeth,” he said awkwardly; “why, how cold your hand is!  I have been trying to find you for some time, but you have always been out or away, leaving no address.”

“I have been to the sea with my Aunt Clara,” she answered.

Then for a while—­five minutes or more—­there followed a strained and stilted conversation.

“Will the booby never come to the point?” reflected Montalvo, surveying him through a join in the tapestry.  “By the Saints, what a fool he looks!”

“Lysbeth,” said Dirk at last, “I want to speak to you.”

“Speak on, cousin,” she answered.

“Lysbeth, I—­I—­have loved you for a long while, and I—­have come to ask you to marry me.  I have put it off for a year or more for reasons which I hope to tell you some day, but I can keep silent no longer, especially now when I see that a much finer gentleman is trying to win you—­I mean the Spanish Count, Montalvo,” he added with a jerk.

She said nothing in reply.  So Dirk went on pouring out all his honest passion in words that momentarily gathered weight and strength, till at length they were eloquent enough.  He told her how since first they met he had loved her and only her, and how his one desire in life was to make her happy and be happy with her.  Pausing at length he began to speak of his prospects—­then she stopped him.

“Your pardon, Dirk,” she said, “but I have a question to ask of you,” and her voice died away in a kind of sob.  “I have heard rumours about you,” she went on presently, “which must be cleared up.  I have heard, Dirk, that by faith you are what is called a heretic.  Is it true?”

He hesitated before answering, feeling that much depended on that answer.  But it was only for an instant, since Dirk was far too honest a man to lie.

“Lysbeth,” he said, “I will tell to you what I would not tell to any other living creature, not being one of my own brotherhood, for whether you accept me or reject me, I know well that I am as safe in speaking to you as when upon my knees I speak to the God I serve.  I am what you call a heretic.  I am a member of that true faith to which I hope to draw you, but which if you do not wish it I should never press upon you.  It is chiefly because I am what I am that for so long I have hung back from speaking to you, since I did not know whether it would be right—­things being thus—­to ask you to mix your lot with mine, or whether I ought to marry you, if you would marry me, keeping this secret from you.  Only the other night I sought counsel of—­well, never mind of whom—­and we prayed together, and together searched the Word of God.  And there, Lysbeth, by some wonderful mercy, I found my prayer answered and my doubts solved, for the great St. Paul had foreseen this case, as in that Book all cases are foreseen, and I read how the unbelieving wife may be sanctified by the husband, and the unbelieving husband by the wife.  Then everything grew clear to me, and I determined to speak.  And now, dear, I have spoken, and it is for you to answer.”