Baroness Orczy

“ Hatred has drawn a film over his eyes and caused his hand to tremble. Put back your poniard, my lord," he added lightly, "the penniless adventurer and paid hireling is unworthy of your steel. Keep it whetted for your own defence and for the protection of the gracious lady who has plighted her troth to you."
"Name her not, man!" cried Stoutenburg, whose arm had dropped by his side, but whose voice was still hoarse with the passion of hate which now consumed him. ”

“ Think of thy lover under torture, on the rack, burnt at the stake. Hast ever seen a man after he has been broken on the wheel? his limbs torn from their sockets, his chest sunken under the weights—and the stake? ”

“ But this I do know—that a woman has been placed in my charge by one who should deem her honour more sacred than his own; in this infamy I now see that you too, my lord, have had a hand. The lady, you say, is your future wife, yet you placed her under my care—a knave, a rascal—miserable plepshurk was the last epithet which you applied to me—you! who also should have guarded her good name with your very life. ”

“ This room is mine—perhaps your Magnificence did not know that—you would not like surely to remain my guest a moment longer than you need."
"Of a truth I knew that the baggage was your sweetheart—else I had not come at all."
"Leave off insulting the girl, man," said Diogenes whose moustache bristled again, a sure sign that his temper was on the boil, "she has told you the truth, she knows nothing of the whereabouts of the noble lady who has disappeared from Haarlem. An you desire information on that point you had best get it elsewhere." ”

“ Men are beginning to browbeat and strike the women now! Dondersteen!"
Stoutenburg, whose vocabulary of oaths was at least as comprehensive as that of any foreign adventurer, had—to its accompaniment—struggled at last to his feet.
"You ..." he began as soon as he had partially recovered his breath. But Diogenes putting up his hand hastily interrupted him:
"Do not speak just now, mynheer," he said with his wonted good-humour. "Were you to speak now, I feel that your words would not be characterized by that dignity and courtesy which one would expect from so noble a gentleman." ”

“ Still as Beresteyn had said: there could be no harm in seeking out the girl. Stoutenburg was quite satisfied in his mind that she must be the rascal's sweetheart, else she had not lent him an helping hand in the abduction of Gilda, and since he himself was well supplied with money through the generosity of his rich friends in Haarlem, he had no doubt that if the wench knew anything at all about the rogue, she could easily be threatened first, then bribed and cajoled into telling all that she knew. ”

“ But remember that I give it you only because to my mind one innocent woman has already suffered quite enough because of you, without having to mourn the man whom she loves and being widowed ere she is a wife. Because of that you may go out of this room a free man—free to pursue your tortuous aims and your ambitious scheme. ”

“ Then as she appeared too frightened to reply and only cast a furtive, timorous glance on him, he continued after a slight pause:
"The man who protected thee against the rabble the other night, and who gave thee shelter afterwards, the man in whose bed thy crippled father lies at this moment—he is thy sweetheart, is he not?" ”