"You are Duke Waldemar, then?" she said, regarding the proud young nobleman with a composed and searching look, while she placed herself so near to the kitchen-door that she could open it whenever she chose. "Your drunken comrade within is likewise the open enemy of the country--the notorious Norse freebooter and incendiary; your groom is also a riever; and yet, with such a train, you dare to make yourself a guest in a royal castle! You have betrayed my father: his life is, perhaps, in danger. Where he has gone, you must know better than I. The pursuers you speak of are probably here, in the castle. It is to me a fearful riddle; but this I know, that at this instant I am mistress of your freedom." The duke started, and looked at the lofty, earnest girl with astonishment; while Sir Abildgaard glanced uneasily round him, and made an involuntary movement towards the door. "The passage is barred," continued Lady Ingé; "but it costs me only a nod, and it stands open to you. Promise me, Duke Waldemar, truly and piously, that, from this time forth, you will undertake no enterprise against the kingdom and country, and I shall then no longer prevent your departure from this castle; but if you cannot or will not promise me this, I instantly call the house-carls to seize you, as the accomplices of this audacious freebooter." The duke and Sir Abildgaard regarded each other with the highest astonishment, and, for a moment, both appeared irresolute. "Excellent!" exclaimed the duke, at length, in a gay and courtly tone of politeness: "to a lady's humour we may, with all honour, give way." But observing Lady Ingé's beautiful, serious countenance and determined mien, he suddenly changed his manner. "I promise you, noble lady," he continued, solemnly, "that I shall take no step that I do not hope to be able to defend, before the Danish people, at every legal tribunal. My conduct you cannot pronounce sentence upon; and you have no other right or power to be our mistress here than we freely concede to your beauty and patriotic spirit. If, then, you would not place your own father in peril of death, you will allow the castle to be opened for us, and not betray to any one what guests have been here." Lady Ingé was silent. A mighty conflict seemed violently to agitate her bosom: she held one hand tremblingly before her eyes, and, with the other, indicated that they might depart. She then opened the kitchen-door, and gave the house-servants orders to re-open the barred passages. The door of the fore-hall was immediately opened, and she perceived, standing in the doorway, the same clumsy-looking fellow who had so much alarmed her, at dusk, with his wild, brutish countenance. "It blows south-east, and we can sail," said he: "all is clear."