“What do you want with me, Foy van Goorl?”
“What?” he repeated; “why I want to be your husband.”
“Is this a time for marrying and giving in marriage?” she asked again, but almost as though she were speaking to herself.
“I don’t know that it is,” he replied, “but it seems the only thing to do, and in such days two are better than one.”
She drew away and looked at him, shaking her head sadly. “My father,” she began——
“Yes,” he interrupted brightening, “thank you for mentioning him, that reminds me. He wished this, so I hope now that he is gone you will take the same view.”
“It is rather late to talk about that, isn’t it, Foy?” she stammered, looking at his shoulder and smoothing her ruffled hair with her small white hand. “But what do you mean?”
So word for word, as nearly as he could remember it, he told her all that Hendrik Brant had said to him in the cellar at The Hague before they had entered upon the desperate adventure of their flight to the Haarlemer Meer. “He wished it, you see,” he ended.
“My thought was always his thought, and—Foy—I wish it also.”
“Priceless things are not lightly won,” said he, quoting Brant’s words as though by some afterthought.