The Laughing Cavalier, Baroness Orczy [the beginning after the end read novel TXT] 📗

He hoped to find rest and peace beside Gilda; he would not tell her that he had condemned the man to death. Let her forget him peaceably and naturally; the events of today would surely obliterate other matters from her mind. What was the life of a foreign vagabond beside the destinies of Holland which an avenging God would help to settle today?

The Lord of Stoutenburg had walked rapidly to the hut where he hoped to find Gilda ready to receive him. He knocked at the door and Maria opened it to him. To his infinite relief she told him that the jongejuffrouw had broken her fast and would gladly speak with him.

Gilda, he thought, looked very pale and fragile in the dim light of two or three tallow candles placed in sconces about the room. There were dark circles round her eyes, and a pathetic trembling of her lips proclaimed the near presence of tears.

But there was an atmosphere of peace in the tiny room, with its humble little bits of furniture and the huge earthenware stove from which the pleasing glow of a wood fire emanated and shed a cheerful radiance around.

The Lord of Stoutenburg felt that here in Gilda’s presence he could forget his ambitions and his crimes, the man whom he was so foully putting to death, his jealousies and even his revenge.

He drew a low chair close to her and half-sitting, half-kneeling, began speaking to her as gently, as simply as his harsh voice and impatient temperament would allow. He spoke mostly about the future, only touching very casually on the pain which she had caused him by her unjust suspicions of him.

Gilda listened to him in silence for awhile. She was collecting all her willpower, all her strength of purpose for the task which lay before her⁠—the task of softening a hardened and treacherous heart, of rousing in it a spark of chivalry and of honour so that it showed mercy there where it now threatened injustice, cruelty and almost inhuman cowardice.

A brave man’s life was in the hands of this man, who professed love for her; and though Gilda rejected that love with contempt, she meant, womanlike, to use that love as a mainspring for the softened mood which she wished to call forth.

The first thought that had broken in upon her after a brief and troubled sleep was that a brave young life would be sacrificed today to gratify the petty spite of a fiend. She had been persuaded yesterday that the man who⁠—though helpless and pinioned⁠—stood before her in all the splendour of manhood and of a magnificent personality was nothing but a common criminal⁠—a liar, a forger and a thief.

Though this thought should have made her contented, since by bringing guilt home to a man who was nothing to her, it exonerated her brother whom she loved, she had felt all night, right through the disturbing dreams which had floated through her consciousness, a leaden weight sitting upon her heart, like the sense of the committal of some great and irreparable wrong. Indeed, she felt that if here in this very place which he had filled last night with his exuberant vitality, she had to think of him as silent and cold for all eternity, such a thought would drive her mad.

The Lord of Stoutenburg’s honeyed words fell unheeded on her ear; his presence near her filled her with horror; she only kept up a semblance of interest in him, because he held the fate of another man in the hollow of his hand.

She was preparing in her mind what she was going to say to him, she rehearsed the words which were most likely to appeal to his callous nature. Already she was nerving herself for the supreme effort of pleading for a brave man’s life when suddenly the tramping of heavy feet outside the hut, confused shouts and clang of arms, caused Stoutenburg to jump to his feet.

The door was torn open, and Nicolaes Beresteyn stood for a moment on the threshold, pale, speechless, with body trembling and moisture thick upon his brow. Lucas of Sparendam was close behind him equally pale and still.

At first sight of her brother Gilda had uttered a little cry of joy; but that cry soon died upon her lips. Beresteyn had scarcely looked on her, his glance at once had found that of Stoutenburg, and the two men seemed to understand one another.

“We are betrayed?” cried Stoutenburg hoarsely.

Beresteyn nodded in reply.

“How?”

Lucas of Sparendam in short jerky sentences retold once more the tale of all that had happened at Delft: the Prince of Orange warned, the spies which he had sent broadcast, the bodyguard which even now was on its way.

“They know of this place,” murmured Beresteyn between quivering lips, “they might be here at any moment.”

Through the open door there came the noise of the men fighting, the cries of rage and of fear, the clatter of metal and the tramping of many feet.

“They are scared and half mad,” said Lucas of Sparendam, “in five minutes the sauve qui peut will commence.”

“We are quite near the coast,” said Stoutenburg with outward calm, though his voice was choked and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, “go you and tell the others, Beresteyn,” he added, turning to his friend, “then collect all our papers that are in the molens. Thank God there are only a few that might compromise us at all. Heemskerk and van Does will help you, they are not like to be seized with panic. We can then make quietly for Scheveningen, where the boats are ready. There is a sledge here and a pair of horses which I shall need; but it is less than a league to Scheveningen, and you can all walk it easily. Tell the others not to lose time and I will follow with the sledge as soon as may be. There is no