"Hush, mother dear! now you are talking wildly. Father is perhaps a little weak. Most of us, I fear me, now are weak. We have been cowed and brow-beaten and threatened till we have lost all sense of our own manhood and our own dignity." "You perhaps," protested the mother almost roughly, "but not Laurence. You and your father are ready to lick the dust before all these Spaniards--but I tell you that what you choose to call loyalty they call servility; they despise you for your fawning--men like Orange and Laurence they hate, but they give them grudging respect..." "And hang them to the nearest gibbet when they get a chance," broke in Mark with a dry laugh. V Before Clémence van Rycke could say another word, the heavy footstep of the High-Bailiff was heard in the hall below. The poor woman felt as if her heart stood still with apprehension. "Your father has finished dressing: go down to him, Mark," she implored. "I cannot bear to meet him with the news." And Mark without another word went down to meet his father. Charles van Rycke--a fine man of dignified presence and somewhat pompous of manner--was standing in the hall, arrayed ready for the reception, in the magnificent robes of his office. His first word on seeing Mark was to ask for Laurence, the bridegroom-elect and hero of the coming feast. "He is a fine-looking lad," said the father complacently, "he cannot fail to find favour in donna Lenora’s sight." The news had to be told: Mark drew his father into the dining-hall and served him with wine. "This marriage will mean a splendid future for us all, Mark," continued the High-Bailiff, as he pledged his son in a tankard of wine: "here’s to the happy young people and to the coming prosperity of our house. No more humiliations, Mark; no more fears of that awful Inquisition. We shall belong to the ruling class now, tyranny can touch us no longer." And the news had to be told. Clémence van Rycke had said nothing to her husband about Laurence’s letter--so it all had to be told, quietly and without preambles. "Laurence has gone out of the house, father, vowing that he would never marry donna Lenora de Vargas." It took some time before the High-Bailiff realised that Mark was not jesting; the fact had to be dwelt upon, repeated over and over again, explained and insisted on before the father was made to understand that his son had played him false and had placed the family fortunes and the lives of its members in deadly jeopardy thereby. "He has gone!" reiterated Mark for the tenth time, "gone with the intention not to return. At the reception to-night the bride will be waiting, and the bridegroom will not be there. The Duke of Alva will ask where is the bride-groom whom he hath chosen for the great honour, and echo will only answer ’Where?’" Charles van Rycke was silent. He pushed away from him the tankard and bottle of wine. His face was the colour of lead.