But in the meanwhile the millers and their families were oft on the verge of starvation, and some of them eked out a precarious livelihood by taking in wayfarers who were on their way to and from the cities and had sundry reasons--into which it was best not to inquire--for preferring to sleep and eat at one of these out-of-the-way places rather than in one of the city hostelries. Diogenes had made previous acquaintance with his present landlord; he knew him to be a man of discretion and of boundless cupidity, two very useful qualities when there is a secret to be kept and plenty of money wherewith to guard it. Therefore did Diogenes order his companions to convey the jongejuffrouw to the molens of Mynheer Patz, and there to keep guard over her until his own return. Patz looked well after his belated guest's material comfort. There was some bread and cheese and a large mug of ale waiting for him in the wheel-house and a clean straw paillasse in a corner. The place smelt sweetly of freshly ground corn, of flour and of dry barley and maize, and a thin white coating of flour--soft to the touch as velvet--lay over everything. Diogenes ate and drank and asked news of the jongejuffrouw. She was well but seemed over sad, the miller explained; but his wife had prepared a comfortable bed for her in the room next to the tiny kitchen. It was quite warm there and Mevrouw Patz had spread her one pair of linen sheets over the bed. The jongejuffrouw's serving woman was asleep on the kitchen floor; she declared herself greatly ill-used, and had gone to sleep vowing that she was so uncomfortable she would never be able to close an eye. As for the two varlets who had accompanied the noble lady, they were stretched out on a freshly made bed of straw in the weighing-room. Patz and his wife seemed to have felt great sympathy for the jongejuffrouw, and Diogenes had reason to congratulate himself that she was moneyless, else she would have found it easy enough to bribe the over-willing pair into helping her to regain her home. He dreamt of her all night; her voice rang in his ear right through the soughing of the wind which beat against the ill-fitting windows of the wheel-house. Alternately in his dream she reviled him, pleaded with him, heaped insults upon him, but he was securely bound and gagged and could not reply to her insults or repulse her pleadings. He made frantic efforts to tear the gag from his mouth, for he wished to tell her that he had not lost his heart to her and cared nothing for the misery which she felt. CHAPTER XXVII THENCE TO ROTTERDAM He only caught sight of the jongejuffrouw later on in the morning when she came out of the molens and stepped into the sledge which stood waiting for her at the door.