Closing her eyes for a moment--for they felt hot and heavy--she could almost believe that Mark was still there--his merry grey eyes looking deeply earnest, trying to read her innermost thoughts. His personality--so strange, so baffling even--seemed still to linger in this dimly-lighted room, and she almost could hear his voice--rugged, yet at times so sweet and tender--echoing softly along the rafters. And all of a sudden she realised the full horror of what she was doing--of what she must do now or else become false and perjured--a traitor to her race and to her King. No longer was she a blind and unconscious tool of Fate--she was she herself--a woman who lived and thought and suffered: and before her at this moment there was nothing but an interminable vista of sorrow and suffering and regret. Whether duty ruled her or sentiment, she--the innocent handmaid of Fate--could reap nothing but remorse in the future; her heart, her very youth, must inevitably be crushed between those two potent factors which were struggling even now for mastery over her soul. Indeed was there ever a woman--a mere girl--confronted with so appalling, so intricate a puzzle? The lives of men were in her hands--the Prince of Orange, the High-Bailiff, Mark, Laurence, Clémence on the one side, on the other the Duke of Alva, her own father, her kindred, all those whom she had clung to and loved throughout her life. And knowing that she never could solve such an awful problem by herself Lenora fell on her knees and prayed: she prayed with all the fervour, but also with all the simplicity of primitive faith--the faith that is willing and eager to leave everything in God’s hands, to trust to guidance and help from above when life has become a hopeless and inextricable tangle--the faith which hath for its principle loyalty and obedience and which accepts suffering in its cause, and glories in it like in a martyr’s crown. III After a few minutes Lenora felt more calm. Her deep and fervent religious sentiment had risen triumphant over every doubt. While she prayed so earnestly, so unquestioningly, it had been made clear to her that the issue of the mighty problem which was putting her very soul on the rack must remain in mightier hands than hers. She could not be the arbiter of men’s lives and of the destinies of the State; all that she could do was to obey her father and fulfil her oath; beyond that, God must decide; He had shown her the way how to obtain the knowledge which she now possessed, and since her father was now back in Brussels, she must find a means of placing that knowledge in his hands. Her father of a surety was kind and just and God would Himself punish whom He willed.