a wearied and querulous traveler, but rather like a man just returned from a short and pleasant ride.
To his astonishment it was Maria, his sister Gilda's faithful tire-woman, who opened the door for him. She anticipated his very first query by a curt:
"Everyone is abed. The jongejuffrouw alone chose to wait for you, and I could not let her wait alone."
Nicolaes uttered an angry exclamation.
"Tell my sister to go to bed, too," he commanded briefly. "I'll go to my rooms at once, as it is so late."
Maria made no audible reply. She mumbled something about "Shameful conduct!" and "Wedding-night!" But Nicolaes paid no heed, strode quickly across the hall, and ran swiftly up the stairs.
But on the landing he came abruptly to a halt. He had almost fallen against his sister Gilda, who stood there waiting for him.
Behind her, a little way down the passage, a door stood ajar, and through it there came a narrow fillet of light. At sight of him, and before he could utter a sound, she put a finger to her lip, then let the way along the passage. The door which stood ajar was the one which gave on her own room. She went in, and he followed her, his heart beating with something like shame or fear.
"Hush!" she whispered, and gently closed the door behind him. "Make no noise!" Kaatje has at last sobbed herself to sleep. She hath been put to bed in her mother's room. 'Twere a shame to disturb her." Then, as Nicolaes muttered something that sounded very like a curse, the girl added reproachfully: "Poor Kaatje! You have shown very little ardour toward her, Klaas."
"I lost my way in the dark," he answered. "I had no thought it could be so late."
Just then the tower clock of St. Maria Kerk chimed the midnight hour.
Gilda hazarded timidly: "You should not have thought of accompanying my lord. He was ready to start out alone; and your place, Klaas, was beside your wife!"
"Are you going to lecture me about my duty, Gilda?" he said irritably. "You must not think that because ---"
"I think nothing," she broke in simply, "save that Kaatje wept when the evening wore on and you did not return; and that the more she wept the greater was our father's anger against you."
"He knew that I meant to accompany your husband a part of the way," Nicolaes retorted. "In truth, had he done me the justice to read my thoughts, he himself would have bade me go."
"It was kind of you," she rejoined somewhat coolly, to be concerned as to my lord's safety. But I can assure you ---"
" 'Twas not concern for his safety," he broke in gruffly, "that caused me to accompany him to-night."
"What then?"
But he gave no reply, but his lip and turned away from her, with the air of one who fears that he hath said too much and cares not to be questioned again.
"I'd best go now," he said abruptly.
He looked around for his gloves, which he had thrown down upon the table. His manner seemed so strange that Gilda was suddenly conscious of a nameless kind of fear; the sort of premonition that comes to highly sensitive natures, at times when hitherto unsuspected danger suddenly looms upon the cloudless sky of life. She forced him to return her searching glance.
"You are hiding something from me, Klaas," she said determinedly. "What is it?"
"I?" he riposted, feigning surprise. "Hiding something? Why should I have something to hide?"
"That I know not," she replied. "But there was some hidden meaning in your words just now when you said that 'twas not concern for my lord's safety that caused you to accompany him this night. What, then, was it?" she insisted, seeing that he remained silent, even though he met her gaze with a look that appeared both fearful and pitying.
She had her back to the door now, looked like some timid creature brought to bay by a cruel and hitherto unsuspected enemy.
"You must not ask me for my meaning, Gilda," Nicolaes said at last. "There are things which concern men only, and with which women should have no part."
His tone of ill-concealed compassion stung her like a cut from a whip across the face.
"There is nothing that concerns my lord," she retorted proudly, "in which he would not desire me to bear my part."
"Then let him tell you himself."
"What?"
She threw the question at him like a challenge, stepped up to him and seized him by the wrist -- no longer a timid creature at bay. But a strong, determined woman, who feels in some mysterious way that the man whom she loves is being attacked, and who is prepared, with every known and unknown weapon almighty love can suggest, to defend him, his life or his honour, or both.
"You are not going out of this room, Klaas, until you have explained!" she said with unquestionable determination. "What is it that my lord should tell me himself?"
"Why he, newly wed and a stranger, was so determined on this, his wedding night, to carry the Stadtholder's message across the Veluwe."
Nicolaes spoke abruptly, almost fiercely now, as if wearied of this wrangling, and burdened with a secret he could no longer hold. But she did not at first understand his meaning.
"I do not understand what you mean," she murmured vaguely, a perplexed frown between her eyes.
"There were plenty there eager and willing to go," Nicolaes went on roughly. "Nay, the errand was not in itself perilous. Speed was required, yes; and a sound knowledge of the country. But a dozen men at least who were in this house to-day know the Veluwe as well as this stranger, and any good horse would cover the ground fast enough. But he wanted to go -- he, this man whom none of us know, who was married this day, and whose bride had the first call on his attention. He insisted with the Stadtholder, and he went --- And I went with him; would have gone all the way if he had not forced me to go back. Why did he wish to go, Gilda? Why did he leave you deliberately this night? Think! Think! And why did he insist on going alone, with not even one of those besotted boon companions of his to share in his adventure? A message to Marquet -- my God!" he added with a sneer. "A message to the Archduchess, more like, to cross the Ijssel ere it be too late!"
"You devil!"
She hissed out the words through set lips and teeth clenched in an access of fierce and overwhelming passion. And before he could recover himself, before he could guess her purpose, she had seized his heavy, leathern gloves, which were lying on the table, and struck him with them full in the face. He staggered, and put his hand up to his eyes.
"Go!" she commanded briefly.
He tried to laugh the situation off, said almost flippantly:
"I'll punish you for this, you young vixen!"
But she did not move, and her glance seemed to freeze the words upon his lips.
"Go!" she commanded once more.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I understand your indignation, Gilda. Nay, I honour it. But remember my warning! Your stranger lord," he went on with slow and deliberate emphasis, "will be returning anon to the Stadtholder's camp, a courted and honoured man; but 'tis the armies of the Archduchess who will have crossed the Ijssel by then, whilst the orders to Marquet will have reached that commander too late."
Then he turned on his heel and went out of the room, and anon Gilda heard his footstep resounding along the passage. She listened until she heard the opening and closing of a distant door, after which she sighed and murmured, "Poor Kaatje!" That was all; but there was a world of meaning in the sorrowful compassion wherewith she said those words.
Then she raised her left hand, round the third finger of which glittered a plain gold ring. The ring she pressed long and lingeringly against her lips, and in her heart she prayed, "God guard you, my dear lord!"
Chapter V – A Race for Life