“My husband, your stepfather, has not escaped; he is in the prison still, for there I have just bidden him farewell, and the sentence upon him is that he shall be starved to death in a cell overlooking the kitchen.” “Oh! oh!” cried Elsa, and Adrian groaned. “It was my good, or my evil, fortune,” went on Lysbeth, in a voice of ice, “to see the written evidence upon which my husband, your brother Foy, and Martin were condemned to death, on the grounds of heresy, rebellion, and the killing of the king’s servants. At the foot of it, duly witnessed, stands the signature of—Adrian van Goorl.” Elsa’s jaw fell. She stared at the traitor like one paralysed, while Adrian, seizing the back of a chair, rested upon it, and rocked his body to and fro. “Have you anything to say?” asked Lysbeth. There was still one chance for the wretched man—had he been more dishonest than he was. He might have denied all knowledge of the signature. But to do this never occurred to him. Instead, he plunged into a wandering, scarcely intelligible, explanation, for even in his dreadful plight his vanity would not permit him to tell all the truth before Elsa. Moreover, in that fearful silence, soon he became utterly bewildered, till at length he hardly knew what he was saying, and in the end came to a full stop. “I understand you to admit that you signed this paper in the house of Hague Simon, and in the presence of a man called Ramiro, who is Governor of the prison, and who showed it to me,” said Lysbeth, lifting her head which had sunk upon her breast. “Yes, mother, I signed something, but——” “I wish to hear no more,” interrupted Lysbeth. “Whether your motive was jealousy, or greed, or wickedness of heart, or fear, you signed that which, had you been a man, you would have suffered yourself to be torn to pieces with redhot pincers before you put a pen to it. Moreover, you gave your evidence fully and freely, for I have read it, and supported it with the severed finger of the woman Meg which you stole from Foy’s room. You are the murderer of your benefactor and of your mother’s heart, and the would-be murderer of your brother and of Martin Roos. When you were born, the mad wife, Martha, who nursed me, counselled that you should be put to death, lest you should live to bring evil upon me and mine. I refused, and you have brought the evil upon us all, but most, I think, upon your own soul. I do not curse you, I call down no ill upon you; Adrian, I give you over into the hands of God to deal with as He sees fit. Here is money”—and, going to her desk, she took from it a heavy purse of gold which had been prepared for their flight, and thrust it into the pocket of his doublet, wiping her fingers upon her kerchief after she had touched him. “Go hence and never let me see your face again. You were born of my body, you are my flesh and blood, but for this world and the next I renounce you, Adrian. Bastard, I know you not. Murderer, get you gone.”