When the patroon dismissed me there was a strange, half-convinced look about him which augured further trouble. His state of mind was peculiar, and later events enable me to say pretty surely what it was. Though I was fairly free from superstition myself, that was a time when it ran riot. In that respect, Van Volkenberg was the creature of his day. He felt many a secret dread that could never have taken hold of me. Once he had tried my life at night; and Louis subsequently told me that my opportune absence when they came inspired the patroon with the unrighteousness of his act. He never guessed, nor did I at the time, that Meg’s warning to me had been due to the prompting of her son. Again he had tripped, captured and buried me, as he firmly believed, only to find me in his house the next morning as hearty as ever. And so I became, to him, an invulnerable foe; I bore a charmed life. The swift and deadly blows that made such short work of his other enemies, had, to all appearance, scarcely a finger’s weight with me. I grew vaguely conscious of this superstitious attitude on the part of the patroon towards me, though not until afterwards did I learn how heavily the burden weighed upon his spirit. There was not much difficulty in persuading the patroon of the truth of the story we had put upon him to account for my second escape. To him it was a fearful dream, which pointed yet more clearly to the fact that I was not the man for him to meddle with. This fact almost turned the balance permanently in my favor, though he still had a lingering suspicion that I was some sort of spy, and I was to feel still more of his ill-humor on this score. I heard no more of him that day. But the next he set me to some dirty work which was quite beneath the position in the household that he had at first accorded me. On the second day he forbade me to eat at the family table, and banished me to the servants’ hall. In a thousand ways, he did all in his power to make my position as uncomfortable as he could. I resented it much at the time, and was continually on the point of an angry outbreak of temper. One fact, however, more than anything else, deterred me. That was my duty to Lady Marmaduke. I was heartily sick of the part I was playing. I had never been ashamed to own my name before, and, day by day, the sound of my false name covered me with more confusion. I felt like a coward, and that is a hard thought to one who prides himself on his courage. It was about this time that I began to doubt the leadership of my stern mistress. A man, however, cannot betray others to set himself right in his own eyes. I had done wrong to be led into this duplicity; but I had accepted a trust, and I should consider myself doubly wrong to betray my mistress now. I resolved to get out of it as soon as I could, but not by means of a second act of dishonor.