He had no explanation to give and I offered none of my own. But I knew beyond a doubt that Louis was true to his word. Who but Louis could have warned the Marmadukes in this way? If he had done so, then he must know who I was. Verily I was on slippery ground, but there I was, and there was neither drawing back nor going forward beyond a certain pace, and that pace was not in my own ruling. I began to think that the patroon had an enemy besides myself in the bosom of his household. Perhaps, after all, it would be through Louis that I should win out in the end; but I little foresaw the truth, or the trouble that was to come before the end, when the clouds should clear above the band of fallen troopers. “Yonder is the city wall,” said Pierre. “I had best not go into town by your side. We should not be seen together, so I will just take my leave.” He left me abruptly and turned down a side lane almost before I knew that he was gone; then I galloped ahead to overtake Annetje Dorn. We entered the city, riding one abreast the other. We had no sooner reached the open space before the Stadt Huys than a new adventure presented itself, an adventure which tested my companion’s nerve to the utmost. “There is the Earl of Bellamont,” she said. “He will take me for my mistress and speak to me. What shall I do?” “You must stick it out,” I answered. “Look sharp now. This must be gone through with.” When we first spied the Earl we were in the midst of a large open place near the fort. Even at that distance I could mark the easy, erect bearing that made him the envy of all the horseback riders in the province. He was bowing right and left to the many persons he met on every hand, and so did not see us until we were quite upon him. When he did see us, however, he bowed low as if he had met a queen. He was much different in this respect from his wife. The Earl, in fact, was free with the ladies and cordial to everyone, but it was a well-known piece of gossip that he would not let his wife stir from the fort without a watch. She had been wild in her youth, and had married him when she was but a child. Now he was jealous as a woman about her, but with himself it was a different matter altogether. “A welcome greeting, Mistress Van Volkenberg.” He knew her well enough by the trappings of her horse, and by the red band on my arm. “I must tell my Lady Bellamont that you ride now with a mask. It has always been her wish, you know, that the maidens of the province should not be so free with their pretty faces.” “Your Excellency speaks sweet flattery,” answered Annetje. The bridle trembled in her hand, but her voice rang like metal. “And your father—is the patroon well?” His face clouded a bit, I thought, as he said this; but there were gentlemen in Yorke in those days that have passed away, and the Earl of Bellamont never failed in courtesy to a woman. “My father is well, your Excellency. This is a new retainer of his—Monsieur St. Vincent.”