"Here stands my father," said the impatient maiden; "impeach him with treason, who can or dare! There stands Wilkin Flammock, son of Dieterick, the Cramer of Antwerp,--let those accuse him to his face who slandered him behind his back!" "Speak, Father Aldrovand," said the Lady Eveline; "we are young in our lordship, and, alas! the duty hath descended upon us in an evil hour; yet we will, so may God and Our Lady help us, hear and judge of your accusation to the utmost of our power." "This Wilkin Flammock," said the monk, "however bold he hath made himself in villany, dares not deny that I heard him with my own ears treat for the surrender of the castle." "Strike him, father!" said the indignant Rose,--"strike the disguised mummer! The steel hauberk may be struck, though not the monk's frock--strike him, or tell him that he lies foully!" "Peace, Roschen, thou art mad," said her father, angrily; "the monk hath more truth than sense about him, and I would his ears had been farther off when he thrust them into what concerned him not." Rose's countenance fell when she heard her father bluntly avow the treasonable communication of which she had thought him incapable-- she dropt the hand by which she had dragged him into the chapel, and stared on the Lady Eveline, with eyes which seemed starting from their sockets, and a countenance from which the blood, with which it was so lately highly coloured, had retreated to garrison the heart. Eveline looked upon the culprit with a countenance in which sweetness and dignity were mingled with sorrow. "Wilkin," she said, "I could not have believed this. What! on the very day of thy confiding benefactor's death, canst thou have been tampering with his murderers, to deliver up the castle, and betray thy trust!--But I will not upbraid thee--I deprive thee of the trust reposed in so unworthy a person, and appoint thee to be kept in ward in the western tower, till God send us relief; when, it may be, thy daughter's merits shall atone for thy offences, and save farther punishment.--See that our commands be presently obeyed." "Yes--yes--yes!" exclaimed Rose, hurrying one word on the other as fast and vehemently as she could articulate--"Let us go--let us go to the darkest dungeon--darkness befits us better than light."