nd a third was a Spanish grandee,
who, as it happened, knew the family of the first wife who had been
deserted.

Therefore, for the luckless Montalvo, when the case had been proved
to the hilt against him by the evidence of the priest who brought the
letter, of the wife's letters, and of the truculent Black Meg, who now
found an opportunity of paying back "hot water for cold," there was
little mercy. His character was bad, and it was said, moreover, that
because of his cruelties and the shame she had suffered at his hands,
Lysbeth van Hout had committed suicide. At least, this was certain, that
she was seen running at night towards the Haarlemer Meer, and that after
this, search as her friends would, nothing more could be heard of her.

So, that an example might be made, although he writhed and fenced his
best, the noble captain, Count Juan de Montalvo, was sent to serve for
fourteen years in the galleys as a common slave. And there, for the
while, was an end of him.

There also was an end of the strange and tragic courtship of Dirk van
Goorl and Lysbeth van Hout.

Six months afterwards they were married, and by Dirk's wish took the
child, who was christened Adrian, to live with them. A few months later
Lysbeth entered the community of the New Religion, and less than two
years after her marriage a son was born to her, the hero of this story,
who was named Foy.

As it happened, she bore no other children.

BOOK THE SECOND

THE RIPENING

CHAPTER IX

ADRIAN, FOY, AND MARTIN THE RED

Many years had gone by since Lysbeth found her love again upon the
island in the Haarlemer Meer. The son that she bore there was now a
grown man, as was her second son, Foy, and her own hair showed grey
beneath the lappets of her cap.

Fast, fast wove the loom of God during those fateful years, and the web
thereof was the story of a people's agony and its woof was dyed red with
their blood. Edict had followed edict, crime had been heaped upon crime.
Alva, like some inhuman and incarnate vengeance, had marched his army,
quiet and harmless as is the tiger when he stalks his prey, across the
fields of France. Now he was at Brussels, and already the heads of
the Counts Egmont and Hoorn had fallen; already the Blood Council was
established and at its work. In the Low Countries law had ceased to
exist, and there anything might happen however monstrous or inhuman.
Indeed, with one decree of the Holy Office, confirmed by