H. Rider Haggard

“ Once alas! he followed that mad Anabaptist fool, John of Leyden, the fellow who set up as a king, and said that men might have as many wives as they wished. That was what sent my husband silly, but, thanks be to the Saints, he has repented of his errors and is reconciled to the Church and Christian marriage, and now, I, who have a forgiving nature, am obliged to support him."
"Your business?" said Brant.
"Mynheer," she answered, dropping her husky voice, "you are a friend of the Countess Montalvo, she who was Lysbeth van Hout?" ”

“ It will be guessed that after the events that led to their union Lysbeth took little pleasure in her husband's society. She was not one of those women who can acquiesce in marriage by fraud or capture, and even learn to love the hand which snared them. So it came about that to Montalvo she spoke very seldom; indeed after the first week of marriage she only saw him on rare occasions. ”

“ He hated Montalvo; he guessed, indeed he knew something of the part which the man had played in this infamous affair, and knew also that it would be a true kindness to Lysbeth to rid her of him.
"If you _proved_ it," he said, "let us say two hundred florins."
"It is not enough, Mynheer."
"It is all I have to offer, and, mind you, what I promise to pay."
"Ah! yes, the other promises and doesn't pay--the rogue, the rogue," she added, striking a bony fist upon the table. "Well, I agree, and I ask no bond, for you merchant folk are not like cavaliers, your word is as good as your paper. ”

“ Just at that time the Government of the Netherlands wished for its own reasons to stand well with the citizen class, and when those in authority learned of the dreadful fraud that had been played off upon a lady of note who was known to be a good Catholic, for the sole object of robbing her of her fortune, there was indignation in high places. ”

“ Indeed; what a terrible risk you must have run, for had those young men, or either of them, chanced to catch you, it is quite certain that you would not have left that room alive. You know these heretics think that they are justified in killing a spy at sight, and, upon my word, I do not blame them. ”

“ From the beginning her instinct told her that her husband's object was not amorous, but purely monetary, a fact of which she soon had plentiful proof, and her great, indeed her only hope was that when the wealth was gone he would go too. An otter, says the Dutch proverb, does not nest in a dry dyke. ”