this evening--you wish to sit down, allow me to hand you a
chair--but I shall not deal with the case myself. Indeed, I propose
to pass him over to the worthy Ruard Tapper, the Papal Inquisitor, you
know--every one has heard of the unpleasant Tapper--who is to visit
Leyden next week, and who, no doubt, will make short work of him."

"What has he done?" asked Lysbeth in a low voice, and bending down her
head to hide the working of her features.

"Done? My dear lady, it is almost too dreadful to tell you. This
misguided and unfortunate young man, with another person whom the
witnesses have not been able to identify, was seen at midnight reading
the Bible."

"The Bible! Why should that be wrong?"

"Hush! Are you also a heretic? Do you not know that all this heresy
springs from the reading of the Bible? You see, the Bible is a very
strange book. It seems that there are many things in it which, when
read by an ordinary layman, appear to mean this or that. When read by a
consecrated priest, however, they mean something quite different. In the
same way, there are many doctrines which the layman cannot find in the
Bible that to the consecrated eye are plain as the sun and the moon.
The difference between heresy and orthodoxy is, in short, the difference
between what can actually be found in the letter of this remarkable
work, and what is really there--according to their holinesses."

"Almost thou persuadest me----" began Lysbeth bitterly.

"Hush! lady--to be, what you are, an angel."

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.

"W