own hands."

"Wait to threaten, my lord, until you have the power: until then go your
way. I--the miserable rascal whom you abhor, the knave whom you
despise--do give you your life and your freedom which, as you well
know, I hold at this moment in the hollow of my hand. But remember that
I give it you only because to my mind one innocent woman has already
suffered quite enough because of you, without having to mourn the man
whom she loves and being widowed ere she is a wife. Because of that you
may go out of this room a free man--free to pursue your tortuous aims
and your ambitious scheme. They are naught to me and I know nothing
about them. But this I do know--that a woman has been placed in my
charge by one who should deem her honour more sacred than his own; in
this infamy I now see that you too, my lord, have had a hand. The lady,
you say, is your future wife, yet you placed her under my care--a knave,
a rascal--miserable plepshurk was the last epithet which you applied to
me--you! who also should have guarded her good name with your very life.
To suit your own ends, you entrusted her to me! Well! to suit mine own
I'll not let you approach her, until--having accomplished the errand for
which I am being paid--I will myself escort the lady back to her father.
To this am I also pledged! and both these pledges do I mean to fulfil
and you, my lord, do but waste your time in arguing with me."

The Lord of Stoutenburg had not attempted to interrupt Diogenes in his
long peroration. All the thoughts of hatred and revenge that sprang in
his mind with every word which this man uttered, he apparently thought
wisest to conceal for the moment.

Now that Diogenes, after he had finished speaking, turned
unceremoniously on his heel and left Stoutenburg standing in the middle
of the room, the latter hesitated for a few minutes longer. Angry and
contemptuous words were all ready to his lips, but Diogenes was paying
no heed to him; he had drawn the girl with him to the bedside of the
cripple, and there began talking quietly in whispers to her.
Stoutenburg saw that he gave the wench some money.

Smothering a final, comprehensive oath the noble lord went quietly out
of the room.

"How that man doth hate thee," whispered the girl in awe-struck tones,
as soon as she saw that the door had closed behind him. "And I hate him,
too," she added, as she clenched her thin hands, "he is cruel, coarse
and evil."

"Cruel, coarse and evil?" sai