"Well!" he said, "whether you bribed him or not matters to me but little. I do believe that willingly you would not have betrayed Nicolaes or me or any of our friends to the Stadtholder, knowing what he is. But you wanted to cross our plans, you wanted to warn the Stadtholder of his danger, and you--not God--chose that man for your instrument." "It is not true--I deny it," she repeated fearlessly. "You may deny it with words, Gilda, but your whole attitude proclaims the truth. Thank God!" he cried with a note of savage triumph in his voice, "that man is still a helpless prisoner in my hands." "What do you mean?" she murmured. "I mean that it is good to hold the life of one's deadliest enemy in the hollow of one's hand." "But you would not slay a defenceless prisoner," she cried. He laughed, a bitter, harsh, unnatural laugh. "Slay him," he cried, "aye that I will, if it is not already done. Did you hear the hammering and the knocking awhile ago? It was Jan making ready the gibbet. And now--though the men have run away like so many verdommde cowards, I know that Jan at any rate has remained faithful to his post. The gibbet is still there, and Jan and I and Nicolaes, we have three pairs of hands between us, strong enough to make an enemy swing twixt earth and heaven, and three pairs of eyes wherewith to see an informer perish upon the gallows." But already she had interrupted him with a loud cry of overwhelming horror. "Are you a fiend to think of such a thing?" "No," he replied, "only a man who has a wrong to avenge." "The wrong was in your treachery," she retorted, even while indignation nearly choked the words in her throat, "no honest man could refuse to warn another that a murderous trap had been laid for him." "Possibly. But through that warning given by a man whom I hate, my life is practically at an end." "Life can only be ended by death," she pleaded, "and yours is in no danger yet. In a couple of hours as you say you will have reached the coast. No doubt you have taken full measures for your safety. The Stadtholder is sick. He hath scarce a few months to live; when he dies everything will be forgotten, you can return and begin your life anew. Oh! you will thank God then on your knees, that this last hideous crime doth not weigh upon your soul." "A wrong unavenged would weigh my soul down with bitterness," he said sombrely. "My life is done, Gilda. Ambition, hope, success, everything that I care for has gone from me. Nicolaes may begin his life anew; he is young and his soul is not like mine consumed with ambition and with hatred. But for that one man, I were to-day Stadtholder of half our provinces and sole ruler of our United Netherlands, instead of which from this hour forth I shall be a fugitive, a pariah, an exile. All this do I owe to one man," he added fiercely, "and I take my revenge, that is all."