"Come!" he cried harshly, "play no tricks with me, wench. Thou didst own to being the rascal's sweetheart." "I owned to my love for him," she said simply, "not to his love for me." "I told thee that he will hang or burn unless thou art willing to help him." "And I told thee, gracious sir, that I would give my life for him." "Which is quite unnecessary. All I want is the knowledge of where he keeps the lady whom he has outraged." "I cannot help you, mynheer, in that." "Thou wilt not!" he cried. "I cannot," she reiterated gently. "I do not know where she is." "Will fifty guilders help thy memory?" he sneered. "Fifty guilders would mean ease and comfort to my father and to me for many months to come. I would do much for fifty guilders but I cannot tell that which I do not know." "An hundred guilders, girl, and the safety of thy lover. Will that not tempt thee?" "Indeed, indeed, gracious sir," she moaned piteously, "I swear to you that I do not know." "Then dost perjure thyself and wilt rue it, wench," he exclaimed as he jumped to his feet, and with a loud curse kicked the chair away from him. The Lord of Stoutenburg was not a man who had been taught to curb his temper; he had always given way to his passions, allowing them as the years went on to master every tender feeling within him; for years now he had sacrificed everything to them, to his ambition, to his revenge, to his loves and hates. Now that this fool of a girl tried to thwart him as he thought, he allowed his fury against her full rein, to the exclusion of reason, of prudence, or ordinary instincts of chivalry. He stooped over her like a great, gaunt bird of prey and his thin claw-like hand fastened itself on her thin shoulder. "Thou liest, girl," he said hoarsely, "or art playing with me? Money thou shalt have. Name thy price. I'll pay thee all that thou wouldst ask. I'll not believe that thou dost not know! Think of thy lover under torture, on the rack, burnt at the stake. Hast ever seen a man after he has been broken on the wheel? his limbs torn from their sockets, his chest sunken under the weights--and the stake? hast seen a heretic burnt alive...?" She gave a loud scream of agony: her hands went up to her ears, her eyes stared out of her head like those of one in a frenzy of terror. "Pity! pity! my lord, have pity! I swear that I do not know." "Verdomme!" he cried out in the madness of his rage as with a cruel twist of his hand he threw the wretched girl off her balance and sent her half-fainting, cowering on the floor. "Verdommt be thou, plepshurk," came in a ringing voice from behind him.