Then, for the first time, she knew in her own heart that she was face to face with great unreasoning love, which could neither be banished nor disowned. "Oh, why," she sobbed, "was he so foolish and wicked? Why did Maisie grow of a sudden so hard and cruel to him? Why must things turn out thus deadly wrong, when they might just as easily have gone right?" She buried her face in the pillow, and whispered her conclusion to the fine linen of its coverture upon which her tears were falling. "Yet I love him--yes, I love him more than ever for it!" she said, and sank her head deeper, as if to hide her love from her own most secret sight. CHAPTER X THE DESCENT OF AVERNUS Wat staggered a little as he walked down the street of Zaandpoort. He felt somewhat like a bullock that has been felled, yet which for the moment escapes with life. The air had grown suddenly thin and cold, as it had been difficult to breathe. He drew his cloak about him and shivered. "Well," he raged, "that at least is ended! They have done with me--made their choice. I that stood by them in many bad, old days am cast off for a rogue and a scoundrel--because, forsooth, he is an earl and a prince's councillor. Were I but come to my rights, they would not treat me thus! But, because I am only poor Wat Gordon of the Douglas Regiment, I must be grateful for any dog's treatment." As Wat grew to believe his own silly windy words, he held his head a little higher. And into the poor, angry, foolish boy's heart the devil cast his baited hook. Pride took hold of Wat, and the thought of revenge. "But, after all, am I not Walter Gordon of Lochinvar," he said, as he strode along, heeding none, "a gentleman at least, and now, in spite of them all, an officer also? If mine own folk and kin think nothing of me in the little lodgings of Zaandpoort Street, I can show them that there are places more famous, where others will make Wat Gordon welcome for his own sake." At that moment a shouting reveller ruffling it along the street recalled to his mind that he was in the neighborhood of the famous Hostelry of the Coronation, where nightly during the stay of the army at Amersfort all the young bloods of the allied forces met, and where (it was reported) brightest eyes shone across the wine goblet, and daintiest feet danced upon the polished floors. The Inn of the Coronation was held by mine host Sheffell. A score of times it had been closed by the city fathers, but, nevertheless, always with more or less carefully concealed intent of winking hard at its immediate reopening. And all this was because the burgomeister and magnates of Amersfort looked upon the Inn of the Coronation as a safety-valve for the riotous blades of the city and camp.