"This will mean hanging for the lot of us this time, Nicolaes!"
"I pray to God ..." exclaimed the other hoarsely.
"God will have nought to say in the matter, my friend," retorted Stoutenburg dryly, "'tis only the Stadtholder who will have his say, and do you think that he is like to pardon...."
"Gilda will never...."
"Oh, yes, she will," broke in Stoutenburg firmly; "be not deluded into thoughts of security. Gilda will think the whole of this matter over for four and twenty hours at the longest, after which, feeling herself in an impasse between her affection for you and her horror of me, she will think it her duty to tell your father all that she heard in the cathedral to-night."
"Even then," said Beresteyn, hotly, "my father would not send his only son to the gallows."
"Do you care to take that risk?" was the other man's calm retort.
"What can I do?"
"You must act decisively and at once, my friend," said Stoutenburg dryly, "an you do not desire to see your friends marched off to torture and the scaffold with yourself following in their wake."
"But how? how?" exclaimed Beresteyn.