"Eight Spanish soldiers in the house of the High-Bailiff of Ghent!" exclaimed Laurence, and a prolonged laugh of intense bitterness came from his overburdened heart. "Oh God!" he added, as he stretched out his arms with a gesture of miserable longing and impotence, "to endure all this outrage and all this infamy!--to know as we do, what has happened in Mons and Mechlin and to be powerless to do anything--anything against such hideous, appalling, detestable tyranny--to feel every wrong and every injustice against the country one loves, against one’s own kith and kin, eating like the plague into one’s very bones and to remain powerless, inert, an insentient log in the face of it all. And all the while to be fawning--always fawning and cringing, kissing the master’s hand that wields the flail.... Ugh! And now this new tyranny, this abominable marriage.... Ye Heavens above me! but mine own cowardice in accepting it would fill me with unspeakable loathing!" "Laurence, for pity’s sake!" implored the mother. At her call he ran to her and knelt at her feet: then burying his head in his hands he sobbed like a child. "I cannot do it, mother!" he reiterated piteously, "I cannot do it. I would far rather die!" With gentle, mechanical touch she stroked his unruly fair hair, and heavy tears rolled down her wan cheeks upon her thin, white hands. "Just think of it, mother dear," resumed Laurence a little more calmly after a while, "would it not be introducing a spy into our very home? ... and just now ... at the time when we all have so much at stake ... the Prince..." "Hush, Laurence!" implored the mother; and this time she placed an authoritative hand upon his arm and gave it a warning pressure; but her wan cheeks had become a shade paler than before, and the look of terror became more marked in her sunken eyes. "Even these walls have ears these days," she added feebly. "There is no danger here, mother darling ... nobody can hear," he said reassuringly. But nevertheless he, too, cast a quick look of terror into the remote corners of the room and dropped his voice to a whisper when he spoke again. "Juan de Vargas’ daughter," he said with passionate earnestness, "what hath she in common with us? She hates every Netherlander; she despises us all, as every Spaniard does: she would wish to see our beautiful country devastated, our cities destroyed, our liberties and ancient privileges wrested from us, and every one of us made into an abject vassal of her beloved Spain. Every moment of my life I should feel that she was watching me, spying on me, making plans for the undoing of our cause, and betraying our secrets to her abominable father. Mother dear, such a life would be hell upon earth. I could not do it. I would far rather die." "But what can you do, Laurence?" asked Clémence van Rycke, with a sigh of infinite misery.