The look of terror became more marked upon his face, his dark skin had become almost livid in hue: and Lenora clung to him, trembling, for she knew that everything he said was true. They were like two birds caught in the net of a remorseless fowler: to struggle for freedom were worse than useless. De Vargas was a man who had attained supreme power beside the most absolute tyrant the world had ever known. Every human being around him--even his only child--was a mere pawn in his hands for the great political game in which the Duke of Alva was the chief player--a mere tool for the fashioning of that monstrous chain which was destined to bind the Low Countries to the chariot-wheels of Spain. A useless tool, a superfluous pawn he would throw away without a pang of remorse: this don Ramon knew and so did Lenora--but in Ramon that knowledge reigned supreme and went hand in hand with terror, whilst in the young girl there was all the desire to defy that knowledge and to make a supreme fight for love and happiness. "I must not stay any longer now, my sweet," he said after awhile, "if your father has so absolutely forbidden you to see me, then I have tarried here too long already." He rose and gently disengaged himself from the tender hands which clung so pathetically to him. "I can’t let you go, Ramon," she implored, "it seems as if you were going right out of my life--and that my life would go with you if you went." "Sweetheart," he said a little impatiently, "it is dangerous for me to stay a moment longer. Try and be brave--I’ll not say farewell--We’ll meet again...." "How?" "Let Inez be at the corner of the Broodhuis this evening. I’ll give her a letter for you. In the meanwhile I shall have seen your father. Who knows his decision may not be irrevocable--after all you are the one being in the world he has to love and to care for; he cannot wilfully break your heart and destroy your happiness." She shook her head dejectedly. But the next moment she looked up trying to seem hopeful. She believed that he suffered just as acutely as she did, and, womanlike, did not want to add to his sorrow by letting him guess too much of her own. She contrived to keep back her tears; she had shed so many of late that their well-spring had mayhap run dry: he folded her in his arms, for she was exquisitely beautiful and he really loved her. Marriage with her would have been both blissful and advantageous, and his pride was sorely wounded at the casual treatment meted out to him by de Vargas: at the same time the thought of defiance never once entered his head--for defiance could only end in death, and don Ramon felt quite sure that even if he lost his beautiful fiancée, life still held many compensations for him in the future.