mother, I cannot! The very shame of it would kill me!"
Laurence van Rycke sat on a low chair in front of the fire, his elbow propped on his knee, his chin buried in his hand. His mother gave a little shiver, and drew her woollen shawl closer round her shoulders.
"You cannot go against your father's will," she said tonelessly, like one who has even lost the power to suffer acutely. "God alone knows what would become of us all if you did."
"He can only kill me," retorted Laurence, with fierce, passionate resentment.
"And how should I survive if he did?"
"Would you not rather see me dead, mother dear, than wedded to a woman whose every thought, every aspiration must tend toward the further destruction of our country-she the daughter of the most hideous tyrant that has ever defamed this earth-more hideous even than that execrable Alva himself…"
He paused abruptly in the midst of this passionate outburst, for the old house-which had been so solemn and silent awhile ago, suddenly echoed from end to end with loud and hilarious sounds, laughter and shouts, heavy footsteps, jingle of spurs and snatches of song, immediately followed by one or two piteous cries uttered in a woman's piercing voice. Laurence van Rycke jumped to his feet.
"What was that?" he cried, and made a dash for the door. His mother's imploring cry called him back.
"No, no, Laurence! don't go!" she begged. "It is only the soldiers! They tease Jeanne, and she gets very cross! … We have six men and a sergeant quartered here now, besides the commandant…"
"Eight Spanish soldiers in the house of the High-Bailiff of Ghent!" exclaimed Laurence, and a prolonged laugh of intense bitterness came from his overburdened heart. "Oh God!" he added, as he stretched out his arms with a gesture of miserable longing and impotence, "to endure all this outrage and all this infamy! – to know as we do, what has happened in Mons and Mechlin and to be powerless to do anything-anything against such hideous, appalling, detestable tyranny-to feel every wrong and every injustice against the country one loves, against one's own kith and kin, eating like the plague into one's very bones and to remain powerless, inert, an insentient log in the face of it all. And all the while to be fawning-always fawning and cringing, kissing the master's hand that wields the flail… Ugh! And now this new tyranny, this abominable marriage… Ye Heavens above me! but mine own cowardice in accepting it would fill me with unspeakable loathing!"
"Laurence, for pity's sake!" implored the mother.
At her call he ran to her and knelt at her feet: then burying his head in his hands he sobbed like a child.
"I cannot do it, mother!" he reiterated piteously, "I cannot do it. I would far rather die!"
With gentle, mechanical touch she stroked his unruly fair hair, and heavy tears rolled down her wan cheeks upon her thin, white hands.
"Just think of it, mother dear," resumed Laurence a little more calmly after a while, "would it not be introducing a spy into our very home? … and just now … at the time when we all have so much at stake … the Prince…"
"Hush, Laurence!" implored the mother; and this time she placed an authoritative hand upon his arm and gave it a warning pressure; but her wan cheeks had become a shade paler than before, and the look of terror became more marked in her sunken eyes.
"Even these walls have ears these days," she added feebly.
"There is no danger here, mother darling … nobody can hear," he said reassuringly. But nevertheless he, too, cast a quick look of terror into the remote corners of the room and dropped his voice to a whisper when he spoke again.
"Juan de Vargas' daughter," he said with passionate earnestness, "what hath she in common with us? She hates every Netherlander; she despises us all, as every Spaniard does: she would wish to see our beautiful country devastated, our cities destroyed, our liberties and ancient privileges wrested from us, and every one of us made into an abject vassal of her beloved Spain. Every moment of my life I should feel that she was watching me, spying on me, making plans for the undoing of our cause, and betraying our secrets to her abominable father. Mother dear, such a life would be hell upon earth. I could not do it. I would far rather die."
"But what can you do, Laurence?" asked Clémence van Rycke, with a sigh of infinite misery.
Laurence rose and dried his tears. He felt that they had been unmanly, and was half ashamed of them. Fortunately it was only his mother who had seen them, and … how well she understood!
"I must think it all over, mother dear," he said calmly. "It is early yet. Father will not want me to be at the Town-house before eight o'clock. Oh! how could he ever have been so mean, so obsequious as to agree to this selling of his son in such a shameful market."
"How could he help it?" retorted the mother with a fretful little sigh. "The Duke of Alva commanded in the name of the King, and threatened us all with the Inquisition if we disobeyed. You know what that means," she added, whilst that pitiable look of horror and fear once more crept into her eyes.
"Sometimes I think," said Laurence sombrely-he was standing in front of the fire and staring into the crackling logs with a deep frown right across his brow-"sometimes I think that the worst tortures which those devils could inflict on us would be more endurable than this life of constant misery and humiliation."
The mother made no reply. Her wan cheeks had become the colour of ashes, her thin hands which were resting in her lap were seized with a nervous tremour. From below came still the sound of loud laughter intermixed now with a bibulous song. A smothered cry of rage escaped Laurence's lips: it seemed as if he could not stay still, as if he must run and stop this insult in his mother's house, silence those brawling soldiers, force their own obscene songs down their throats, regardless of the terrible reprisals which might ensue. Only his mother's thin, trembling hand upon his arm forced him to remain, and to swallow his resentment as best he could.
"It is no use, Laurence," she murmured, "and I would be the first to suffer."
This argument had the effect of forcing Laurence van Rycke to control his raging temper. Common sense came momentarily to the rescue and told him that his mother was right. He started pacing up and down the narrow room with a view to calming his nerves.
"Have you seen Mark this morning?" asked Clémence van Rycke suddenly.
"No," he replied, "have you?"
"Only for a moment."
"What had he to say?"
"Oh! you know Mark's way," she replied evasively. "It seems that he caught sight of donna Lenora de Vargas when she passed through the Waalpoort yesterday. He made a flippant joke or two about your good luck and the girl's beauty."
Laurence suppressed an angry oath.
"Don't blame Mark," interposed Clémence van Rycke gently, "he is as God made him-shallow, careless…"
"Not careless where his own pleasures are concerned," said Laurence, with a laugh of bitter contempt. "Last night at the 'Three Weavers' a lot of Spanish officers held carouse. Mark was with them till far into the night. There was heavy drinking and high play, and Mark…"
"I know, I know," broke in the mother fretfully, "do not let us speak of Mark. He is his father's son … and you are mine," she added, as with a wistful little gesture she stretched out her arms to the son whom she loved. Once more he was at her feet kissing her hands.
"Do not fret, mother
