eady put new strength
into me. And the sight of you kneeling and praying near me has put life
into me again."

"Then, since you are better," she rejoined coldly, "I pray you rise, my
lord, and make ready to go. The garden is quite lonely, the Oude Gracht
at its furthest boundary is more lonely still. The hour is late and the
city is asleep ... you would be quite safe now."

"Do not send me away yet, Gilda, just when a breath of happiness--the
first I have tasted for four years--has been wafted from heaven upon me.
May I not stay here awhile and live for a brief moment in a dream which
is born of unforgettable memories?"

"It is not safe for you to stay here, my lord," she said coldly.

"My lord? You used to call me Willem once."

"That was long ago, my lord, ere you gave Walburg de Marnix the sole
right to call you by tender names."

"She has deserted me, Gilda. Fled from me like a coward, leaving me to
bear my misery alone."

"She shared your misery for four years, my lord; it was your disgrace
that she could not endure."

"You knew then that she had left me?"

"My father had heard of it."

"Then you know that I am a free man again?"

"The law no doubt will soon make you so."

"The law has already freed me through Walburg's own act of desertion.
You know our laws as well as I do, Gilda. If you have any doubt ask your
own father whose business it is to administer them. Walburg de Marnix
has set me free, free to begin a new life, free to follow at last the
dictates of my heart."

"For the moment, my lord," she retorted coldly, "you are not free even
to live your old life."

"I would not live it again, Gilda, now that I have seen you again. The
past seems even now to be falling away from me. Dreams and memories are
stronger than reality. And you, Gilda ... have you forgotten?"

"I have forgotten nothing, my lord."

"Our love--your vows--that day in June when you yielded your lips to my
kiss?"

"Nor that dull autumnal day, my lord, when I heard from the lips of
strangers that in order to further your own ambitious schemes you had
cast me aside like a useless shoe, and had married another woman who was
richer and of nobler birth than I."

She had at last succeeded in freeing herself from his grasp, and had
risen to her feet, and retreated further and further away from him until
she stood up now against the opposite wall, her slender, white form lost
in the darkness, her whispered words only striking