Kate uttered a feeble cry. It was all she could, for her tongue clove to her palate with terror. Then she dropped her crutches, and sank upon her knees, hiding her face and moaning: “Take my body, but spare my soul!” Margaret (panting). “Why, it is a woman!” Kate (quivering). “Why, it is a woman!” Margaret. “How you scared me!” Kate. “I am scared enough myself. Oh! oh! oh!” “This is strange! But the fiery-headed thing? Yet it was with you, and you are harmless! But why are you here at this time of night?” “Nay, why are YOU?” “Perhaps we are on the same errand? Ah! you are his good sister, Kate!” “And you are Margaret Brandt.” “Yes. “All the better. You love him; you are here. Then Giles was right. He has won free.” Gerard came forward, and put the question at rest. But all further explanation was cut short by a horrible unearthly noise, like a sepulchre ventriloquizing: “PARCHMENT!--PARCHMENT!--PARCHMENT!” At each repetition, it rose in intensity. They looked up, and there was the dwarf, with his hands full of parchments, and his face lighted with fiendish joy and lurid with diabolical fire. The light being at his neck, a more infernal “transparency” never startled mortal eye. With the word, the awful imp hurled parchment at the astonished heads below. Down came records, like wounded wild-ducks; some collapsed, others fluttering, and others spread out and wheeling slowly down in airy circles. They had hardly settled, when again the sepulchral roar was heard--“Parchment--parchment!” and down pattered and sailed another flock of documents: another followed: they whitened the grass. Finally, the fire-headed imp, with his light body and horny hands, slid down the rope like a falling star, and (business before sentiment) proposed to his rescued brother an immediate settlement for the merchandise he had just delivered. “Hush!” said Gerard; “you speak too loud. Gather them up, and follow us to a safer place than this.” “Will you come home with me, Gerard?” said little Kate. “I have no home.” “You shall not say so. Who is more welcome than you will be, after this cruel wrong, to your father's house? “Father! I have no father,” said Gerard sternly. “He that was my father is turned my gaoler. I have escaped from his hands; I will never come within their reach again.” “An enemy did this, and not our father.” And she told him what she had overheard Cornelis and Sybrandt say. But the injury was too recent to be soothed. Gerard showed a bitterness of indignation he had hitherto seemed incapable of.