In the convent at Segovia she had learned the lesson of obedience so absolutely that it never entered her mind to question the decrees of those three all-potent arbiters of her destiny. And when--as now--the hour came when the most sacred oath she had ever spoken had to be fulfilled, she would have thought it a deadly sin to search her own heart, to study her feelings, to argue with herself about it. She would as soon have thought of arguing with God. On Ramon’s death-bed she had sworn to her father that she would act and work for her country and for her King in the way that her father would direct. The time had come, and she did what she believed to be her duty without question and without false shame. She knew that the knowledge which she already possessed was of paramount importance to the Government: the Prince of Orange was in Ghent--who but he would be called "your Highness"?--and moving about among his friends surreptitiously and at dead of night? Who but he would speak of the mysterious Leatherface as being on the watch for him? The Prince of Orange was in Ghent and was conspiring against the State. There had been talk of the Duke of Alva’s visit to Ghent and of two thousand men being secretly armed. What other purpose save that of murder and bloodshed could be served by such secret plottings and the levying of troops in this illegal manner? The Prince of Orange was in Ghent and would on the morrow continue his underhand and treasonable machinations in the house of Messire Deynoot, Procurator-General of Ghent.