On this the Duke begins to plead with her to think of his gray hairs—she who is the comfort of his declining life—and finally bursts out at Guy: “This is a selfish love of yours—to take this girl who has had princess’ state to live with you, a rover of the sea.” “But with her I have taken a mighty dower—worthy a King’s daughter; all THY UNLUCKY TENTH PENNY TAX, my lord of Alva!” answers Chester, who can’t withhold this parting shot. “How so? From whence?” “From thy treasure house under the Bastion of the Duke.” “Good God! Impossible!” “It was the dying Paciotto’s secret!” “I—I can’t believe,” falters Fernando, pale, trembling, broken. “Believe by this! The statue moved its hand!” jeers Chester. “And Roderigo, my watcher, died six days ago! It is fate—fortune has turned her face from me,” moans he of Alva, and bows his head upon his breast, as if hope had left him. From this picture of despair Guy leads his bride away; but chancing at the door to turn back for one last glance at her father who is now alone, Hermoine begins to shudder and sob even in her husband’s arms. The man of iron soul is kneeling before the altar piece, from which his daughter’s eyes look down at him, and sobbing—he who never sobbed before. It is the last Alva has of his child in this world from now on. After the beautiful being who had been the joy of his declining years turns her back on him, fortune turns her face from him also. Though he wins Haarlem, and his executioners, five of them, working day and night, butcher the burghers of that hapless town and kill the bravest defenders of its walls, Ripperda, Hasselaer, and its other heroes of heroes; Don Fernando fails at the siege of Alkmaar. He is not the Alva of old; and when some months after he departs for Spain he goes broken in mind and body, having lost the confidence of his king, but gained the immortal infamy of being the most cruel man of a most cruel age—all his unpaid creditors in Holland and Brabant shout execrations as he leaves their shores; they do not know the true story of his statue. Even Requesens, the succeeding Viceroy, believing his soldiers’ rumors, tears Alva’s great image down, and goes to digging for his treasure—to find naught but the wondrous casket that contained it. But the Duke takes with him to Spain one thing; that he now values most of all on earth—the altar piece painted by the genius of Oliver, and it is set up on high behind the grand altar in the cathedral near Vittoria, where my lord of Alva worships. Soon peasant tales are told that he of iron heart cries each day before the Madonna, for the myriad lives that had been lost to the world through him in the Low Countries. And now in after years that picture is attributed to the early brush of Murillo, and goes to make that Master’s glory—tourists being told it is without price.