“You are ill—how do I find you!”
“That your Highness should think of me!… It is nothing.… I tried to do what I could for the people, out there … you would not believe, the cruelties!”
William ground his teeth.
“I took the fever … there was not enough food.… They mutilated the people … as in Farnese’s day.”
The Calvinist pastor drew himself painfully up.
“I have seen our churches burnt and heard Mass sung.…”
He gasped, and stared down into the agonised face of the young man kneeling at his bedside.
“It seemed God had turned His face from us … but I knew that He would raise Your Highness up to be our deliverer.”
William coloured and trembled.
“That you should come here to see me,” whispered M. Triglandt in a tone of infinite tenderness. “Now I shall die very glad.”