"----sent to the galleys, beaten, driven to his doom even as he sat lashed to the oar. He! young, gallant, an honest, God-fearing man! And all for what? For what? Because they and thousands like them--all good and true subjects of this tyrant Louis, of this priest-ridden, woman-ridden Louis--did but wish to worship in their own way! Not think of it! My God! shall I ever cease to think of it?" "Nay, do not weep, I implore you," Sylvia exclaimed. "The English will help; so, too, will all the Netherlands. All who think and worship as those in the South worship will help. And soon, soon, freedom, peace, must come. An end must come to all their sufferings." "Does he know all this?" the Comtesse asked again when her passionate sorrow had somewhat spent itself. "Does he? If not, he must do so. Otherwise, what will he deem me--me, a Frenchwoman seeking to reach Marlborough, the most hated, the most feared foe of France!" "He knows," Sylvia whispered, "and, knowing, understands all." But by now the night was near at hand. Through the great, open, bow-shaped window of the solid Dutch house was wafted the scent of countless summer flowers, the perfume of the roses, now dashed with the evening dews, mingling with that of many others. Also the sounds that summer always brings more plainly to the ears were not wanting; the birds were twittering in the trees ere roosting for the short night; from the Abbey of St Paul the solemn sounds of the great bell boomed softly while the silver-toned carillons joined in unison. In other of the city gardens close by the voices of little children could be heard as they played their last rounds ere going to their beds, all unconscious, or, at least, unheeding, in their innocence that they were in a beleaguered city that, if war's worst horrors rolled that way, might ere long be the scene of awful carnage and see its old streets drenched with blood. "It is the time, Sylvia," the Comtesse said, "that he should come. Is the gate unlocked?" "Nay, not yet. I will go and see to it." And Sylvia, passing through the low window and down the steps to the garden, went along the neatly-kept path towards where the gate was. Then, at the moment she was about to turn the key in the lock, and, next, to leave the solid wooden gate an inch ajar, so that, when Bevill came, he might push it open as he had done more than once since she had taken up her abode in this house, she heard a footstep outside in the lane--one that she had already learnt to know well enough! "Ah," she exclaimed, turning the key quickly and drawing back the door, while she held out her hand to Bevill a moment afterwards. "Ah! you have come." "To the moment," he replied, taking her outstretched hand and bending over it. "Did I not say that I would be here before the carillon had finished its chimes? And here am I! Yet--yet--almost I doubted if it were well for me to come to-night----"