on this
house."

"Allemachte! Allan, a strange time to choose," answered Marais, pulling
at his beard; "the troth that is plighted in blood is apt to end in
blood."

"A vain superstition to which I cannot consent," interrupted my father.

"Perhaps so," I answered. "I know not; God alone knows. I only know that
we plighted our troth when we thought ourselves about to die, and that
we shall keep that troth till death ends it."

"Yes, my father," added Marie, leaning forward across the scored
yellow-wood table, her chin resting on her hand and her dark, buck-like
eyes looking him in the face. "Yes, my father, that is so, as I have
told you already."

"And I tell you, Marie, what I have told you already, and you too,
Allan, that this thing may not be," answered Marais, hitting the table
with his fist. "I have nothing to say against you, Allan; indeed, I
honour you, and you have done me a mighty service, but it may not be."

"Why not, mynheer?" I asked.

"For three reasons, Allan, each of which is final. You are English, and
I do not wish my daughter to marry an Englishman; that is the first.
You are poor, which is no discredit to you, and since I am now ruined my
daughter cannot marry a poor man; that is the second. You live here, and
my daughter and I are leaving this country, therefore you cannot marry
her; that is the third," and he paused.

"Is there not a fourth," I asked, "which is the real reason? Namely,
that you wish your daughter to marry someone else."

"Yes, Allan; since you force me to it, there is a fourth. I have
affianced my daughter to her cousin, Hernando Pereira, a man of
substance and full age; no lad, but one who knows his own mind and can
support a wife."

"I understand," I answered calmly, although within my heart a very
hell was raging. "But tell me, mynheer, has Marie affianced herself--or
perhaps she will answer with her own lips?"

"Yes, Allan," replied Marie in her quiet fashion, "I have affianced
myself--to you and no other man."

"You hear, mynheer," I said to Marais.

Then he broke out in his usual excitable manner. He stormed, he argued,
he rated us both. He said that he would never allow it; that first he
would see his daughter in her grave. That I had abused his confidence
and violated his hospitality; that he would shoot me if I came near his
girl. That she was a minor, and according to the law he could dispose of
her in marriage. That she must accompany him whither he wa