his neck.

"Let us call it a dream, little sister," he said firmly, "and do you try
and forget it."

"That I cannot, Nicolaes," she replied, "unless you will promise me...."

"To betray my friends?" he sneered.

"I would not ask you to do that: but you can draw back ... it is not too
late.... For our father's sake, and for mine, Nicolaes," she pleaded
once more earnestly. "Oh think, little brother, think! It cannot be that
you could countenance such a hideous crime, you who were always so loyal
and so brave! I remember when you were quite a tiny boy what contempt
you had for little Jakob Steyn because he told lies, and how you
thrashed Frans van Overstein because he ill-treated a dog.... Little
brother, when our father was ruined, penniless, after that awful siege
of Haarlem, which is still a hideous memory to him, the Prince of Orange
helped him with friendship and money to re-establish his commerce, he
stood by him loyally, constantly, until more prosperous days dawned upon
our house. Little brother, you have oft heard our father tell the tale,
think ... oh, think of the blow you would be dealing him if you lent a
hand to conspiracy against the Prince. Little brother, for our father's
sake, for mine, do not let yourself be dragged into the toils of that
treacherous Stoutenburg."

"You call him treacherous now, but you loved him once."

"It is because I loved him once," she rejoined earnestly, "that I call
him treacherous now."

He made no comment on this, for he knew in his heart of hearts that what
she said was true. He knew nothing of course of the events of that night
in the early spring of the year when Gilda had sheltered and comforted
the man who had so basely betrayed her; but for her ministration to him
then, when exhausted and half-starved he sought shelter under her roof,
in her very room--he would not have lived for this further plotting and
this further infamy, nor yet to drag her brother down with him into the
abyss of his own disgrace.

Of this nocturnal visit Gilda had never spoken to anyone, not even to
Nicolaes who she knew was Stoutenburg's friend, least of all to her
father, whose wrath would have fallen heavily on her had he known that
she had harboured a traitor in his house.

"Stoutenburg lied to me, Nicolaes," she now said, seeing that still her
brother remained silent and morose, "he lied to me when he stole my
love, only to cast it away from him as soon as ambition called him from
m