"Ramon had not breathed his last when the provost found him and ultimately brought him here to my lodgings. He was able to speak and to give a fragmentary account of what had taken place: how he was set upon in the dark and stabbed to death ere he could utter a cry. But at the last moment he made a supreme effort and wrenching his dagger from his belt he struck with it at his assailant. It seems that he inflicted a very severe wound upon the miscreant: the dagger penetrated into the left forearm close to the elbow and gashed the flesh and muscle as far as the wrist and right through to the bone. It is not likely that at this moment there is more than one man in Ghent who hath such a wound in the left forearm: the wound was deep too, and will take some time to heal, and even when it is healed it will leave a tell-tale scar which will last for years.
"I think," rejoined Lenora coldly, "that I should know the man who killed Ramon, even if he bore no brand of Cain upon his person."
Father and daughter looked at one another and for the space of a few seconds their souls--so different in every ideal, every feeling, every aspiration--met in one common resolve. He could hardly repress a sigh of satisfaction. He knew that he held her, closely, firmly, indissolubly at last. He held her by all the romance which her girlish imagination had woven round the personality of a worthless man, and by all the deep sense of injury which she felt as well as all the horror and the indignation at the dastardly deed. And his own warped and gloomy soul was at one with her pure and childlike one--pure because even the desire for revenge which she felt, she ascribed to God, and called it justice. The Moorish blood in her which mingles even with the bluest Castilian claimed with savage, primeval instinct that "eye for an eye" and "tooth for a tooth" which alone can satisfy a hot-headed and passionate race.
Lenora's eyes as she met those of her father lost their look of dull despair: something of the fanatical hatred which he felt for the whole of the despised race communicated itself to her, now that she too had so much cause for hatred.
"We understand one another, Lenora," he said. And like a feline creature sure of its prey, he drew quite close to her and took her hand, and began gently to stroke it.
"You will have to teach me what to do, father," she rejoined.
"Your heart and wits will tell you that. In a few days you will have entered the van Rycke household. Keep your eyes and ears open, and win the confidence and love of all those around you. Let not a word, a sign, a gesture escape you, and come and tell me at once all that you see and hear. Will you promise to do that, my Lenora?" he added, forcing his harsh voice to tones of gentleness.
"I promise," she replied fervently.
"The Lieutenant-Governor believes that Orange himself has been visiting Ghent lately! Keep your eyes and ears open, Lenora, you may be the means of bringing that arch-traitor to his just punishment. Promise me that you will listen," he urged.
"I promise," she reiterated firmly.