The astute valet seemed to have divined the scheme, and was plying the bottle sedulously upon his charge. Fate, however, upon which the wanderers had hitherto so blindly reckoned, again wielded the key. Marcelin had hardly drawn the first sweep of the knife upon the goose’s breast when the house reverberated to the sound of distant knocking. The little dame went as white as the kerchief at her bosom; a far greater discomfiture fell upon her than she had manifested at sight of her gallant’s wound. “Heaven’s mercy!” she gasped; “it is from the street!” She ran to the inner door and listened in the passage; the knocking was resumed, from no patient or weakling hand, in peculiar cadence. “It is my husband,” she said then, coming back into the room, with the calmness of despair. “It is my husband, and I am lost.” The Spaniard rose to his feet and stood swaying, a look of dismay and helplessness upon his countenance. Instinctively she turned to Rockhurst, and pointing to the sorry figure, she cried:— “My husband will never forgive me … no, Josse will never forgive me! He bought Ramon out when they had billeted him on us, last month. He bought him out and I was forbidden ever to speak to him again. I thought I was safe to-night … I am lost!” The thunder of the husband’s rapping accompanied her lament with swelling rhythm. “Oh!” she went on, “Josse told me this morning he was going to Antwerp. It was a trap!” “A trap!” exclaimed the Cavalier gaily. “But there is a way out, madam, a way out, since there was a way in!” “To the devil with this night’s work!” suddenly gurgled the Capitan. “To the devil, say I, with women and fools!” His lady’s wine had not been without effect upon his wits; but he was sober enough to seize the situation and act on his rival’s hint. In three staggering steps he was at the door, and they could hear him break into a kind of groping run down the passage. In the midst of her terror the Dutchwoman’s eye flashed with sudden scorn. “Truly,” said Rockhurst, as if in answer, “’tis a valiant heart! Yet, madam, with him is your chief anxiety removed. Whilst you play with bolts and delay your lord with fond embrace, we, on our side, vanish by the garden whence we came. Aye, and let out the señor, for ’tis still I who have the key.—Go, dear madam; leave the rest to us.” “Alack, alack!” she moaned, “this supper table, laid for two, will yet betray me!” “Say you so!” exclaimed Rockhurst, his wits leaping to the humorous opportunity. “Nay, then shall the supper vanish, too! Your Flemish household still sleeps heavily; our chances are good. Madam, before you hurry to the door, you had better put some dishevelment in your attire to show you had but just descended from your bedchamber, where you were doubtless already disrobing.—Marcelin, you rogue, you have a reputation for a smart table servant; deserve it!”