"But what?" she queried with agonised impatience. "Speak, girl! Canst not see that I only live to hear?"
"Our father was taken," said Grete quietly, "he was hanged eight days ago."
"Hanged?" exclaimed Lenora, horror-struck. "Why? What had he done?"
"He was of the Protestant faith ... and..."
Lenora made no comment, and the girl wiped her eyes, which had filled with tears.
"Thou and Katrine were spared?" asked Lenora, after awhile.
"We were spared at the time," said Grete, "but I suppose," she added with quaint philosophy, "we remained objects of suspicion. The soldiers would often be very rough with us, and upon the seventh day of October the commanding Spanish officer in Ghent..."
Once more she paused timidly, fear of having said too much, fighting with the childish love to retail her woes, and pour her interesting story into sympathetic ears.
"Well?" queried Lenora, more impatiently, "go on, child. What did the commanding Spanish officer in Ghent do to thee on the seventh day of October?"
But at this Grete burst into a flood of tears. The events were so recent, and the shock of horror and of fear had been so terrible at the time, that the recollection of it all still had the power to unnerve her. Lenora, whose own nerves were cruelly on the rack at this moment, had much ado to keep her impatience in check. After a few moments Grete became more calm, and dried her eyes.