ly lit up by the glimmer of a street-lamp fixed in the wall just
above her head.

"I would have speech with thee," he said in his usual peremptory manner
as soon as he had approached her, "show me the way to thy room."

Then as, like a frightened rabbit, she made ready to run away to her
burrow as quickly as she could, he seized hold of her arm and reiterated
roughly:

"I would have speech of thee, dost hear? Show me the way to thy room at
once. Thy safety and that of thy father depend on thy obedience. There
is close search in the city just now for Spanish spies."

The girl's pale cheeks took on a more ashen hue, her lips parted with a
quickly smothered cry of terror. She knew--as did every stranger in
these Dutch cities just now--that the words "Spanish spy" had a magical
effect on the placid tempers of their inhabitants, and that many a
harmless foreign wayfarer had suffered imprisonment, aye and torture
too, on the mere suspicion of being a "Spanish spy."

"I have nothing to fear," she murmured under her breath.

"Perhaps not," he rejoined, "but the man who shelters and protects thee
is under suspicion of abetting Spanish spies. For his sake 'twere wiser
if thou didst obey me."

Stoutenburg had every reason to congratulate himself on his shrewd
guess, for at his words all resistance on the girl's part vanished, and
though she began to tremble in every limb and even for a moment seemed
ready to swoon, she murmured words which if incoherent certainly sounded
submissive, and then silently led the way upstairs. He followed her
closely, stumbling behind her in the dark, and as he mounted the
ricketty steps he was rapidly rehearsing in his mind what he would say
to the wench.

That the girl was that abominable villain's sweetheart he was not for a
moment in doubt, her submission just now, at the mere hint of the
fellow's danger, showed the depth of her love for him. Stoutenburg felt
therefore that his success in obtaining what information he wanted would
depend only on how much she knew. In any case she must be amenable to a
bribe for she seemed wretchedly poor; even in that brief glimpse which
he had had of her by the dim light of the street-door lamp, he could not

help but see how ragged was her kirtle and how pinched and wan her face.

On the landing she paused and taking a key from between the folds of her
shift she opened the door of her lodging and humbly begged the gracious
mynheer to enter. A tallow ca