Presently Adrian entered, and Elsa, watching everything, noticed that he looked sadly changed and ill.
“You sent for me, mother,” he began, with some attempt at his old pompous air. Then he caught sight of her face and was silent.
“I have been to the Gevangenhuis, Adrian,” she said, “and I have news to tell you. As you may have heard, your brother Foy and our servant Martin have escaped, I know not whither. They escaped out of the very jaws of worse than death, out of the torture-chamber, indeed, by killing that wretch who was known as the Professor, and the warden of the gate, Martin carrying Foy, who is wounded, upon his back.”
“I am indeed rejoiced,” cried Adrian excitedly.
“Hypocrite, be silent,” hissed his mother, and he knew that the worst had overtaken him.
“My husband, your stepfather, has not escaped; he is in the prison still, for there I have just bidden him farewell, and the sentence upon him is that he shall be starved to death in a cell overlooking the kitchen.”
“Oh! oh!” cried Elsa, and Adrian groaned.
“It was my good, or my evil, fortune,” went on Lysbeth, in a voice of ice, “to see the written evidence upon which my husband, your brother Foy, and Martin were condemned to death, on the grounds of heresy, rebellion, and the killing of the king’s servants. At the foot of it, duly witnessed, stands the signature of—Adrian van Goorl.”
Elsa’s jaw fell. She stared at the traitor like one paralysed, while Adrian, seizing the back of a chair, rested upon it, and rocked his body to and fro.
“Have you anything to say?” asked Lysbeth.