A great, a vivid ray of hope had pierced the darkness of her misery, it had flickered low at first, then had glowed with wonderful intensity, flickered again and finally died down as hope itself fell dying once more in the arms of despair. The disappointment which she had endured then amounted almost to physical pain; her heart ached and beat intolerably and with that disappointment was coupled a sense of hatred and of humiliation, different to any suffering she had ever had to bear before. A man could have helped her and had refused: he could have helped her to avert a crime more hideous than any that had ever blackened the pages of this country's history. With that one man's help she could have stopped that crime from being committed and he had refused ... nay more! he had first dragged her secret from her, word by word, luring her into thoughts of security with the hope that he dangled before her. He knew everything now: she had practically admitted everything save the identity of those whose crime she wished to avert. But even that identity would be easy for the man to guess. Stoutenburg, of course, had paid him to lay hands on her ... but her brother Nicolaes was Stoutenburg's friend and ally, and his life and that of his friends were now in the hands of that rogue, who might betray them with the knowledge which he had filched from her. No wonder that hour after hour she lay prostrate on the bed, while these dark thoughts hammered away in her brain. The Prince of Orange walking unknowingly straight to his death, or Nicolaes--her brother--and his friends betrayed to the vengeance of that Prince. Ghosts of those who had already died--victims to that same merciless vengeance--flitted in the darkness before her feverish fancy: John of Barneveld, the Lord of Groeneveld, the sorrowing widows and fatherless children ... and in their trail the ghost of the great Stadtholder, William the Silent murdered--as his son would be--at Delft, close to Ryswyk and the molens, where even now Nicolaes her brother was learning the final lesson of infamy. When in the late morning Maria came into the room to bring her mistress some warm milk and bread, and to minister to her comforts, she found her dearly loved jongejuffrouw wide-eyed and feverish. But not a word could she get out of Gilda while she dressed her hair, except an assurance that their troubles--as far as Maria could gauge them--would soon be over now, and that in twenty-four hours mayhap they would be escorted back to Haarlem. "When, I trust, that I shall have the joy of seeing three impudent knaves swing on gibbets in the market place," quoth Maria decisively, "and one of them--the most impudent of the lot--drawn and quartered, or burnt at the stake!" she added with savage insistence.