CHAPTER XXIV
THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE
Margaret was still in jeopardy, and before many hours had gone it was known that she stood in danger of again being lodged in the place from whence she had just been rescued. What should have been her bridal day was spent in hiding, and her father did not dare to come to see her in the broad daylight lest someone belonging to the Holy House should be watching, in readiness to track him, on the supposition that he would be going to see his daughter.
It was dark when he came, but after he had gone home again, Margaret pleaded to be taken home, if only for an hour, to see her mother.
"No!" cried Heinrich, who had come back to the stable, pale and dishevelled, the water dripping from him as he stood within the room. "No! something will happen. You will run into the arms of those fiends who are seeking for you, and I have been told that they have sworn to find you, and break you on the rack, and after that to burn you in the Holy House garden, into which all who are confined there are to be brought to witness your sufferings."
Margaret shuddered, and hid her face in her hands.
"Who told you all that?" Herman asked, pale and trembling at the threat, but realising, from what was common knowledge, that what the simple-minded man said was more than likely to be true. It was the thing one could have expected.
"I will not tell you," Heinrich answered, almost curtly. "Why should I? And yet, why not?" he added quickly, wiping his face with his kerchief, for it was streaming with the rain which could be heard pattering heavily on the roof. Before he said more, he looked round the room, and, uncertain about the door, went to it, and, standing on the top, called down softly to his mother, who was below:
"Is the outer door locked?"
The whispered question was answered softly, when, from the sounds that followed, they who listened knew that she had gone to the door to try it.