He studied the parchment, and fell very grave and thoughtful.
“Where are you lodged?” he asked.
She told him.
“Wait there until I send for you again,” he bade her. “Leave this order with me, and depend upon it, justice shall be done.”
That evening, a messenger rode out to Middelburg to summon von Rhynsault to Bruges, and the arrogant German came promptly and confidently, knowing nothing of the reason, but conceiving naturally that fresh honours were to be conferred upon him by a master who loved stout-hearted servants. And that Rhynsault was stout-hearted he showed most of all when the Duke taxed him without warning with the villainy he had wrought.
If he was surprised, he was not startled. What was the life of a Flemish burgher more or less? What the honour of a Flemish wife? These were not considerations to daunt a soldier, a valiant man of war. And because such was his dull mood—for he was dull, this Rhynsault, as dull as he was brutish—he considered his sin too venial to be denied. And the Duke, who could be crafty, perceiving that mood of his, and simulating almost an approval of it, drew the German captain into self-betrayal.
“And so this Philip Danvelt may have been innocent?”
“He must have been, for we have since taken the guilty man of the same name,” said the German easily. “It was unfortunate, but—”
“Unfortunate!” The Duke's manner changed from silk to steel. He heaved himself out of his chair, and his dark eyes flamed. “Unfortunate! Is that all, you dog?”
“I conceived him guilty when I ordered him to be hanged,” spluttered the captain, greatly taken aback.