"Gilda," he said quietly, "though God knows how ready I am to do you service in all things, this is a case where weakness on my part would be almost criminal, for indeed it would be to a hardened and abandoned criminal that I should be extending that mercy for which you plead." "Indeed, my lord," she retorted coldly, "though only a woman, I too can judge if a man is an abandoned criminal or merely a misguided human creature who doth deserve mercy since his confession was quite open and frank." "Commonsense did prompt him no doubt to this half-confession," said Stoutenburg dryly, "or a wise instinct to win leniency by his conduct, seeing that he had no proofs wherewith to substantiate his former lies. Am I not right, fellow?" he added once more turning to the prisoner, "though you were forced to own that you alone are responsible for the outrage against the jongejuffrouw, you have not told her yet that you are also a forger and a thief." Diogenes looked on him for a moment or two in silence, just long enough to force Stoutenburg's shifty eyes to drop with a sudden and involuntary sense of shame, then he rejoined with his usual good-humoured flippancy: "It was a detail which had quite escaped my memory. No doubt your Magnificence is fully prepared to rectify the omission." "Indeed I wish that I could have spared you this additional disgrace," retorted Stoutenburg, whose sense of shame had indeed been only momentary, "seeing that anyhow you must hang to-morrow. But," he added once more to the jongejuffrouw, "I could not bear you to think, Gilda, that I could refuse you anything which it is in my power to grant you. Before you plead for this scoundrel again, you ought to know that he has tried by every means in his power--by lying and by forgery--to fasten the origin of all this infamy upon your brother." "Upon Nicolaes," she cried, "I'll not believe it. A moment ago he did vindicate him freely." "Only because I had at last taken away from him the proofs which he had forged." "The proofs? what do you mean, my lord?" "When my men captured this fellow last night, they found upon him a paper--a bond which is an impudent forgery--purported to have been written by Nicolaes and which promised payment to this knave for laying hands upon you in Haarlem." "A bond?" she murmured, "signed by Nicolaes?" "I say it again, 'tis an impudent forgery," declared Stoutenburg hotly, "we--all of us who have seen it and who know Nicolaes' signature could see at a glance that this one was counterfeit. Yet the fellow used it, he obtained money on the strength of it, for beside the jewelry which he had filched from you, we found several hundred guilders upon his person. Liar, forger, thief!" he cried, "in Holland such men are broken on the wheel. Hanging is thought merciful for such damnable scum as they!"