V
The clock of the Cloth-Hall tower chimed the ninth hour. Lenora raised her head and once more peered out into the night.
Nine o'clock! If Michel Daens had done his duty, he must be more than half-way to Brussels by now. It almost seemed to Lenora's supersensitive nerves at this moment that she could hear the tramp of his horse's hoofs upon the muddy road--Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Surely, surely she could hear it, or was it her own heart-beats that she was counting?
Hammer! Hammer! Hammer! Two horses, each with a rider, were speeding along the road: one to Brussels--Michel Daens the butcher-messenger, bearing the letter for don Juan de Vargas which would raise in its trail a harvest of death for traitors ... and along the road to Ghent Mark speeding too, to warn those traitors to remain in hiding--or to flee while there was yet time--for justice Was on their track. Mark had gone to Ghent, of this Lenora was sure; she had burned his letter, but she remembered its every word. He spoke of meeting the ox-wagon which was on its way from Ghent! besides which, of course, he was bound to go back. Was he not the paid spy of the Prince of Orange--his mentor and his friend?
And mentally Lenora strained her ears to listen ... to hear which of those two riders would first reach his destination. And as she listened it seemed as if that monotonous hammer! hammer! was beating against her heart, and with every blow was crushing to death more of her life, more of her youth ... and all her hopes of happiness.
VI
Inez--tired out with the jolting of the wagon, wet to the skin, fagged and cold--found her mistress still sitting by the open window, with streaming hair and eyes glowing as with inward fever. The devoted soul very quickly forgot her own discomfort in view of her young mistress' sorry plight. She chafed the ice-cold hands and combed the dripping hair; she took off the heavy gown, and the leather shoes and silk stockings. She bathed the hot brow and little cold feet, and finally got Lenora into bed and had the satisfaction of seeing her smile.
"There now, my saint," she said cheerily, "you feel better, do you not? I tell you when I met Messire van Rycke and he told me that you were here and that we were to get to you at once, I nearly swooned with fright ... I wanted to ask him a dozen questions ... but he had ridden away out into the darkness before I could speak a single word...."
The pillow was fresh and smelt sweetly of lavender. Lenora had closed her eyes and a sense of physical well-being was--despite heart-ache and mental agony--gradually creeping into her bones.
"Where did you meet Messire van Rycke, Inez?" she asked quietly.