But oh! what months those were, what dreadful months!  From time to time she saw her husband—­when he wanted cash—­and every night she heard him returning home, often with unsteady steps.  Twice or thrice a week also she was commanded to prepare a luxurious meal for himself and some six or eight companions, to be followed by a gambling party at which the stakes ruled high.  Then in the morning, before he was up, strange people would arrive, Jews some of them, and wait till they could see him, or catch him as he slipped from the house by a back way.  These men, Lysbeth discovered, were duns seeking payment of old debts.  Under such constant calls her fortune, which if substantial was not great, melted rapidly.  Soon the ready money was gone, then the shares in certain ships were sold, then the land and the house itself were mortgaged.

So the time went on.

Almost immediately after his refusal by Lysbeth, Dirk van Goorl had left Leyden, and returned to Alkmaar, where his father lived.  His cousin and friend, however, Hendrik Brant, remained there studying the jeweller’s art under the great master of filigree work, who was known as Petrus.  One morning, as Hendrik was sitting at breakfast in his lodging, it was announced that a woman who would not give her name, wished to see him.  Moved more by curiosity than by any other reason, he ordered her to be admitted.  When she entered he was sorry, for in the gaunt person and dark-eyed face he recognised one against whom he had been warned by the elders of his church as a spy, a creature who was employed by the papal inquisitors to get up cases against heretics, and who was known as Black Meg.

“What is your business with me?” Brant asked sternly.

“Nothing to your hurt, worthy Heer, believe me, nothing to your hurt.  Oh! yes, I know that tales are told against me, who only earn an honest living in an honest way, to keep my poor husband, who is an imbecile.  Once alas! he followed that mad Anabaptist fool, John of Leyden, the fellow who set up as a king, and said that men might have as many wives as they wished.  That was what sent my husband silly, but, thanks be to the Saints, he has repented of his errors and is reconciled to the Church and Christian marriage, and now, I, who have a forgiving nature, am obliged to support him.”

“Your business?” said Brant.

“Mynheer,” she answered, dropping her husky voice, “you are a friend of the Countess Montalvo, she who was Lysbeth van Hout?”

“No, I am acquainted with her, that is all.”

“At least you are a friend of the Heer Dirk van Goorl who has left this town for Alkmaar; he who was her lover?”

“Yes, I am his cousin, but he is not the lover of any married woman.”

“No, no, of course not; love cannot look through a bridal veil, can it?  Still, you are his friend, and, therefore, perhaps, her friend, and—­she isn’t happy.”

“Indeed?  I know nothing of her present life:  she must reap the field which she has sown.  That door is shut.”