The interview with her future husband had not left donna Lenora any happier or more contented with her lot. The callousness which he had shown in accepting a fiancée like a bale of valueless goods was equally apparent in his attitude after this first introduction to her. The poor girl's heart was heavy. She had had so little experience of the world, and none at all of men. Already at an early age she had become motherless; all the care and the tenderness which she had ever known was from the father whose pride in her beauty was far greater than his love for his child. A rigid convent education had restrained the development of her ideals and of her aspirations; at nineteen years of age the dominating thought in her was service to her King and country, loyalty and obedience to her father and to the Church.
In the crowded ballroom she saw young girls moving freely and gaily, talking and laughing without apparently a care or sorrow; yet they belonged to a subject and rebel race; the laws of a powerful alien government dominated their lives; fear of the Inquisition restrained the very freedom of their thoughts. They were all of them rebels in the eyes of their King: the comprehensive death-warrant issued by the Duke of Alva against every Netherlander--man, woman, and child, irrespective of rank, irrespective of creed, irrespective of political convictions--hung over every life here present like the real sword of Damocles: even this day all these people were dancing in the very presence of death. The thought of the torture-chamber, the gibbet, or the stake could never be wholly absent from their minds. And yet they seemed happy, whilst she, donna Lenora de Vargas, who should have been envied of them all, was sitting solitary and sad; her lace handkerchief was soaked through with her tears.
A sudden movement of the curtain on her left roused her from her gloomy meditations. The next moment, a young man--with fair unruly hair, eyes glowing through the holes of the velvet mask which he wore, and sensitive mouth quivering with emotion--was kneeling beside her: he had captured one of her hands, and was kissing it with passionate fervour. Not a little frightened, she could hardly speak, but she did not feel indignant for she had been very lonely, and this mute adoration of her on the part of this unknown man acted like soothing balm on her wounded pride.
"I pray you, sir," she murmured timorously, "I pray you to leave me...."
He looked up into her face, and, through the holes of the mask, she could see that his eyes were--like hers--full of tears.
"Not," he whispered with soulful earnestness, "till I have told you that your sorrow and your beauty have made an indelible impression on my heart, and that I desire to be your humble servitor."
"But who are you?" she asked.
"One who anon will stand very near to you--as a brother...."
"A brother? Then you are...?"
"Laurence van Rycke," he replied, "henceforth your faithful servant until death."