"Coovenden," replied Jacqueline with the hesitancy she could never quite overcome in pronouncing this assumed title.
"Coovenden? Ah, it is not a name that I recognize—and yet there is something,—I know not what, which stirs me!" And he went away shaking his head thoughtfully. On her way home Jacqueline stopped at the public market to purchase what scarce supply of provisions she was able to obtain.
"But this is a miserable little cabbage!" she expostulated mildly to the huckster who served her. "And see! this mutton-bone has scarce any meat upon it. 'Twill be watery soup that is made from this mess!"
"And lucky thou art to have any soup at all!" answered the market-woman. "I tell thee, girl, the time is coming when we shall be glad to eat the grass that grows in the streets, and that's not far distant, either. I, for one would gladly see the gates opened to the Spaniards. They are better at least than slow starvation!" Jacqueline shrank away from her at these words so like disloyalty to the great cause, and hurried home with the news she had to tell.
As the day wore on, Vrouw Voorhaas became more and more uneasy about Gysbert, and questioned his sister so closely about his absence that she had hard work quieting the woman's fears and at the same time hiding the truth about him. She herself was beset by more definite terrors for his safety than Vrouw Voorhaas could even guess, and though she did not expect Gysbert before nightfall, counted the moments with ever-increasing agitation.
Then darkness came and the two partook of their frugal supper, laying aside a generous portion for the boy. One by one the stars twinkled out. Jacqueline, sitting by the window tried to count them to distract her thoughts. Her mind reverted again and again to the scenes of the morning, and the pictures of the suffering she had witnessed would not fade from her consciousness. As she sat leaning her head against the casement, she was suddenly startled by having two hands clapped over her eyes, and a voice whispering in her ear:
"Guess who it is!"
"Gysbert!" she exclaimed. "How didst thou get in?"
"Hush! I slipped in through the garden and climbed to my window up the rose-trellis. I did not want Vrouw Voorhaas to see my disguise, and have washed it all off and changed my clothes. Where is she?"
"In her room," answered his sister, "and right anxious about thee, I can warrant! But tell me all about it, Gysbert!"