prophecy. But, she leans too far over a balcony, and in one moment all becomes-goes out intonothing! If I tried to destroy this little halfworn glove it would be a harder thing to do, and would take longer. Roskě nothing-nowhere!

"It is unthinkable. If I think of it, the thing I greatly fear will come upon me. I shall go mad. When Marchemont died I had none of these thoughts. I thought, like other people, that he went to heaven. In those days I was a good Calvinist, or I thought I was. But, when the first glow of feeling passed away, the old Italian spirit of unbelief and mockery returned. And yet not the same-never the same again. In the old days at Padua, I had not known the mystery of a great love. That changes everything. When one loves, one takes the world seriously, and one wants another world to go on loving in. Without

it, we should be like Duke Maurice of Saxony, when he refused to make a prisoner of the Emperor Charles. 'No,' said he, 'for such a bird as that I have no cage.' For the white bird of love is the cage of our life on earth all too strait; and they who think they have no other, had best open wide their hands, and let the bird fly back again to heaven.

"I could not do that. Nor did my faith go from me all at once, or with observation.' Rather was it like a building, which continues to look fair to the eye, while the waters all the time are sapping its foundations.

"However far I went in the studies that I loved, it was still matter, matter only, that I had to do with. I found nothing else, nothing more. I never, indeed, found anything which said to me distinctly, No spirit, no God.' No voice said 'No'; but then, no voice said 'Yes.' There was no voice, nor word, nor any that answered.

"Nor has there been yet, nor will there be for ever and ever. The world rolls on, and keeps its dread, eternal silence throughout the Ages.

"So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to the end. Yet they say-Protestants and Catholics alike-that the eternal silence was broken, once for all, when Christ rose from the dead. But that was a long way off, a long while ago. So ever with these marvels, of which the Catholics boast such a vast array. Always far away, long ago--never here-now! Let Papist or Protestant, Anabaptist or Jew, bring Roskě back to me from the dead, and I will believe!

"My faith was already wavering, when there came the years-the accursed years-of Alva's Government. Was that of a nature to convince any man of the rule of a righteous and merciful God? The world will never know half the horrors I have known-and would I could forget them! Then the War, with its unimaginable miseries! Every one gave God thanks for the relief of Leyden; but I held my peace, remembering Haarlem and Naarden and Zutphen and Maestricht, which were not relieved. And even in Leyden, the thousands who might have been saved, had the relief but come a little sooner!

"Would not I have saved them, if I could? And I am only a man, and not half as good a man as others Marchemont for instance, or Duifhuis.

That God, who could, would not, is what nothing shall make me believe. God not merciful, not just! God, a magnified Duke of Alva, or King of Spain! If I find myself coming to think that, I shall try the medicine yonder book prescribes, and

die. No; I may doubt God, deny Him even, but while I keep my reason I will not blaspheme Him. "Clearly, all is Chance, Fate, Destiny, or whatever else we choose to call this mad confusion we are born into. Is it not proved, even by what happened to Roskě? It happened, it was an accident pure and simple. If any one of a hundred trifling things had been different! If I had yielded to her unselfish wish, and taken her place on the balcony! If Marie had been there, with her ready eye and hand! If any one who there had caught her clothing! If she had not thrown those flowers! If-if-if. A man might go on with the 'ifs' for ever! Yet those who believe in God and in His Providence, must believe that each one of the least of all these 'ifs,' was known to guided-directed by-Him. Impos sible!"

Added later, in ink of a different colour.-"But whereunto serveth this idle reasoning, save to break again a broken heart? Duifhuis, who believes that God does order all things, says that in the future life He will repay those who have suffered here. But is there a future life? Is there? My whole soul cries out the questioncries it out into the desert of space. And there comes no answer. No God, no future. No future, then certainly no God. They two must stand or fall together.

"What use in writing the gospel of despair? I will write no more in this book."

Later." It is midwinter now, and very cold. I am reminded of Marchemont, and that winter long ago in Antwerp. Marchemont told me something ere he died, which I was to tell again to Rose. He had fallen into sore trouble and coflict of mind; no doubt from bodily conditions, which at the time I did not accurately diag But he came forth triumphant, holding fast b this one clue--wherever Christ is, there also would he be, whether in life or death, in being or in nothingness. No power was strong enough t part him from Christ. Christ? What magie there in that Name? It is strange-strange!

is

"The Prince too-he said to me, Christ comfo you.' Very different men those two, but both of them able-the Prince immeasurably the ablest I have ever known. I had been wont to think his faith a weapon in the hand of his statecraft-but verily that day, when his hand touched and his eyes looked into mine, he spoke from his inmost

heart."

Another entry. "I have just found the key of Roske's little chest where she used to keep her treasures. It was lying all these months in my desk; I must have looked at it a hundred times. Oh, that I could find thus the key to the great mystery! But the trouble is, there is none to find. At times my sorrow and loneliness press upon me so that I would fain lie down and die. It is well my patients give me work that I cannot wholly neglect. With them I can talk—I can

smile even-while within all is dark-darkblackness of darkness."

Another entry still :-"Is the thought that has come to me now worth the trouble of writing down? I hardly know-and yet here it is. Suppose for a moment that there is a key to the mystery of the world, and that this key is Christ. (And certainly the power of that Name is a thing to wonder atWhence comes it?) Let me try how the key would fit the wards. The mystery is, if God be there at all, why does He not show Himself? Why does He dwell in the thick darkness? Why does He keep silence and make no sign?

66 Has Christ come out of the silence and the darkness to show us why? To tell us it will pass? To tell us God is, God loves us, God will hear us?

"O God, O Christ, if indeed Thou art, speak to me, answer me! I do not believe in Thee-not yet-but I want Thee! With all my heart, and soul, and mind I want Thee!

"If I were blind, and knew not whether Marie were in the room or no, I would call. If there, she would answer me, and I should know. Things which we cannot see, we know by experiment. If we make a demand upon them in their own line, they will answer it."

First dated entry, "March 1, 1578.—What I

wrote last shall stand. Another word I add now. Not, I believe in Christ, but-I love Him. I have been reading the gospels over carefully, and truly the record of that life is like naught else. Those miracles, at which I used to smile!-If one day I . come to believe in Him, I will thank Him, not that He wrought so many, but that He wrought so few. Any one inventing the story would have made Him do, what I would do here, in stricken Holland, if I could. One sick man healed, one dead man raised, why not a hundred, when you are about it? So they are far enough removed in time and space, what is there to stop you? What stopped the pen of the evangelists ?

"But there is a far deeper question, what stopped the hand of Christ? Why, if He came to save, did He not save every one?

"Why did He not save Himself? Why did His own story end, not like Leyden, but like Naarden? "O Christ, Thou art one of us indeed! Thou didst take Thy place, not with the victors, but with the victims. Thou didst drink to the very dregs the cup of suffering. Thou knewedst loss, anguish, shame, defeat-nay, it would almost seem as if, once at least, Thou knewedst despair. I, a stricken man, stretch out my hand to Thee across the ages, and call Thee, Brother!

"March 3.-What if God meant all that?

"March 12.-I can conceive of reasons why God could not help the world's agony all at once, and entirely. There may be good things that can only come out of pain-no other way. But how to make us know that? How to make us understand that, in spite of all, He is there-that He loves us, will deliver us, sometime, some way?

"Marchemont once told me a story of Dr. Luther, how, when he was mourning over his sins, VicarGeneral Staupitz said to him,' Would you be only a painted sinner, to have only a painted Saviour?' Had we only painted needs and sorrows, a promise,

a message, a vision of hope might have sufficed us. But so terribly real is the pain, the woe-that His Son, His own Son, had to come and suffer, to make us believe that throughout it all He loves-He will save. Nothing less would do.

"March 13.-Here I have been assuming what I never proved-discussing the question: Does He love?' before I have settled that other, 'Does He live?' And yet both seem one to me. And perhaps the only way to prove either, is the way of experiment.

"God the Divine Father, Christ the Divine Son. That is how He puts it to us. Are these names types and symbols, by means of which we may apprehend what by no other means at all, in our present state, we can comprehend?

"March 17.-Perhaps, on the other hand, it is our fatherhood and sonship which are types and symbols of the everlasting truth? Father and child, and the great love there is between them. So the Father, so God is said to love-whom? The Divine Son. But what help in that for us, for the world? I have it." God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Gave His Son to suffer and to die! For what, for whom, would I have given Roskě?

"O God, when it was in Thine heart to tell us Thou lovest us throughout all, surely Thou knewedst how !

"March 18.-I think it were better for me to write no more in this book. A great fear possesses me that my reason is going from me. O God, save me from that doom!

"March 19.-Yet why am I so much afraid? The devout men I know are sane enough, saner indeed than other people. Faith in God made Marchemont what he was; Rose would have been good without it, but it certainly made her happy. While it inspired the men of Leyden with a heroism that will be remembered as long as the world lasts. And without it, I suppose the Prince of Orange would now be governing these countries under Philip, and planning royal marriages for his daughters in his splendid court in Brussels, whilst we should be groaning in misery under the Edicts and the Inquisition. It works well, this faith in God.

"March 20.-I do not think it contrary to reason to let the heart speak. There may be truths reason cannot find, as there are facts that elude the senses. Nothing real but what we can see or touch? Is love not real then?

"March 21.-I have been looking over that little box of Roske's; and not without tears, for, thank God, I can weep now. Amongst her treasures is a little windmill; a pretty toy enough, which I remember Dirk's making for her in Leyden. I thought at first she had kept it for his sake; but I saw beneath it a scrap of paper, with the words, in her large imperfect writing, 'Father mended it.' So I did, after Dirk went away, and very badly too. Yet she kept it thus. True, loving little heart! The heart has ceased to beat; but the love, has that perished wholly out of the world?

works of wonder on earth were so few.' And now, I do thank Thee, O Christ, for that veiling and restraining of Thy power. Thou didst come to dwell among us not to save us, all at once, from all our toil and sorrow, but to be the living promise and prophecy of the salvation God will have wrought for us when all His work is finished. Thou didst die, because we have to die. Thou didst suffer, because we must suffer. God did not take the pain away, but in Thee He did a better thing, He came and shared it. Thou, O Christ, art sharing it even still in sympathy; for is there not, in the midst of the Throne, the Lamb as it had been slain,' the type of sacrifice and suffering? "March 30.-If Thou didst die because we must die; then also Thou didst live again that we might live again. I see it now. Thank God! Thank God! Only let me not die of the joy of it! "And the souls I love live also with Thee, where Thou art. Then Thou wilt let me see them again somewhere, somehow."

Later." Am I forgetting, in my strange newborn joy the fact of the world's sin, as real a thing as the world's pain? I too, I am a sinful man, and He is holy, else could I not believe in Him at all. But He has provided for all that, and by the same suffering and sacrifice. I will think of it hereafter. Just to day I rest, rest in the joy that floods my whole being at the thought that He is.

"March 31.-He is. I hold by that; I hold by Him. As Marchemont said, Marchemont who is with Him now-'Surely in what place my Lord the King shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will Thy servant be.'

April 7.-A strange thing has come to me today, a letter from my old friend Christopher Plantin, the printer of Antwerp. He tells sad things of the ruin wrought there by the Spanish Fury; but says the town is quiet now and in good order. The foreign soldiers have been driven out; and the citadel which Alva made so strong for himself, razed to the ground. There is full liberty of conscience; and Plantin urges me to come back to them, that my treatise on the Hand, which he has in his possession, may be printed and illustrated under my own eye. Shall I do it?"

SILE

CHAPTER XXVIII.-UNDER THE BAN.

ILENT times are often times of growth. Such a time had come now to Adrian Pernet. There was in him that which was bound to grow by the law of its nature-the germ of a new life. But he was not conscious of growth, only of calm, that calm of a full tide which men call peace. For truly

"His resting-place was found, the C major of this life."

When the keynote is found, the melody follows. It will not be perfect at first, there may be here and there, now and then, a jarring note, but slowly, gradually, the discords clear, and the music sounds on ever sweeter, fuller, truer.

Adrian had worked before, and not unworthily; but the difference was, that now he served. The

one great Name was no longer to him the centre of a circle of supernatural dogmas, it was the name of his Lord and King, dearer to his heart-oh mystery of mysteries!-than the beloved names of wife and child; yet not putting him apart from them, but binding all together more closely than they were ever bound before.

He accepted the invitation of Plantin, and set his face towards Antwerp in the autumn of 1578. At first his unpractical soul sank within him at the thought of the labour and trouble of the move. Marie was ready to help to the utmost of her ability, but a man's head and hand were needed. One day, however, as he was looking helplessly around on his possessions, wondering vaguely what to do with them, and with himself, Dirk Willemzoon appeared upon the scene, and offers his services. Adrian had not seen him for some time, and supposed him either with his grandfather at Jäsewyk, or gone back to the army.

A clear young brain to think, and strong young hands to work for him, were a god-send to Adrian, and almost an equal boon to Marie. What there was to be done Dirk did silently and without asking questions; and, while utterly submissive and respectful to Adrian, he scrupled not to take care of him in ways upon which his own sister would not have ventured. When all preliminaries were arranged, Adrian and Marie asked themselves how they were to accomplish the perilous journey to Antwerp (all journeys were perilous then), without his help. But they had not to find an answer; for he presently brought a horse to show the Doctor, asking if he thought it would bear the weight of two-Mejuffrouw Marie on a pillion, and himself to hold the reins. Or, if Mejuffrou cared not to ride, they might buy a horse and cart, and sell them again in Antwerp.

On arriving in Antwerp, Adrian found, with mingled pain and pleasure, that his old lodgings in the Place aux Gants were vacant. Moreover, by occupying them, he would do a great kindness Peregrine Blois had been one of the victims of the Spanish Fury; and as his possessions had been ruthlessly plundered, his impoverished widows only too glad to receive so good a lodger as the Doctor again, at a time when "many houses even great and fair" were left without inhabitant." But there was plenty of work for the head and hands of a skilful physician, especially if he were not too exacting in the matter of fees, but willing sometimes to give his services "for God's sake." This common expression Adrian used to translate "for nothing at all," now he called it, "for double pay," in the present a joy, in the future a recompense of reward.

On Dirk remained with him for the present. coming to Antwerp, Adrian had asked him what he could do for him, in return for his many services.

The tall young fellow blushed like a girl, and said shyly, "If Mynheer, who is so learned, when he had time, would only teach me a little!-For I know just nothing at all, save to read my Bible, and to write a letter, and that very badly.”

It cost Adrian a pang, for he used to teach Roskě, but he could not refuse. He was rewarded

There was nothing to hinder his remaining in Antwerp, for the war just then was languishing. These were the years of the Perpetual Edict, the Pacification of Ghent, and the Union of Utrecht;

-an edict not Perpetual but most temporary; a Pacification violated all too soon: but, on the other hand, a Union between the faithful Northern Provinces which laid the foundation of the glorious Republic of Holland. But, taken altogether, men were fighting just then with pens and protocols, rather than with swords and pistols.

Meanwhile, for Adrian and his household, life glided on quietly enough. But to Marie the days and weeks brought ever more and more of that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick. Edward Wallingford came not back, nor did any message or token from him come to soothe her aching heart. Adrian had made an effort, at the cost of much trouble and expense, to communicate with the Béguine of Amsterdam, but had failed completely. For now at last the future capital of Holland was in the hands of Hollanders. The citizens, in a popular outbreak, had cast off the yoke of Spain; and priests, monks, and nuns, with most of their adherents, had been driven out of the town, barely escaping with their lives. The Béguines, it was assumed, had gone with the rest. More and more, as time passed on, did Marie come to feel that the Béguine's story must have been a fraud or a delusion. More and more did she think, till the thought grew to be almost a certainty, that she should never see the face of Edward Wallingford again upon earth.

One summer evening, Adrian and Marie entertained a few friends at supper. There was M. Grandpère, the Walloon Pastor whose ministra tions they attended, with his wife, an Antwerp merchant, a brother physician named Hasselaer, and Dr. Caspar Maldeer, Adrian's old rival, who had come to Antwerp on business of his own. They had brought Neeltjé with them from Utrecht, (Katjé was married ere they left, and to a good Protestant), and she waited on the party in the absence of Dirk, who usually performed the office, not as servant but as pupil, for now his position in the family was defined and honourable.

Adrian and Marie both wondered that he came not. They could not help thinking of him now and then, even with something like anxiety, as they did the honours of their modest, but well-spread board, and joined in the animated talk of their guests. The conversation turned upon the Duke of Anjou, whether he would accept the limited sovereignty the States were about to offer him, upon conditions; and whether, if he did, he would be the right man in the right place. The Antwerp physician, who had spent some years in France, ventured to doubt it.

"The Prince wishes it," said M. Grandpère, with the air of one who has settled the question.

"The situation is a strange one," Maldeer observed. "One man governs us, and behold!—he

sets up another to reign in his stead, and bids us prove our loyalty to himself by handing it over to him."

66

Perhaps," the merchant threw in, "the Prince will govern still, though the Duke reigns." "God grant it!" said the Pastor's wife. "You speak well, Madame," remarked Adrian, bowing towards her. (They were conversing in French.) "All men know, and Don John himself confessed it, that the Prince is the one man in these countries. But we need foreign aid. How else could we hope, a mere handful as we are, to stand up against the whole power of Spain?"

"Can we not hope all, with God on our side?" Marie asked timidly.

"But God works by means," Adrian answered: "it is trusting Him to use the means, as the Prince has said. If through a fair and honourable Alliance, by which we secure our Freedom and our Faith, we can bring to our aid the vast resources and the splendid prestige of France, is it not worth giving something up? Even though that something be the right to call our lord and chief the man who actually is so, whatever we call him?"

!

No wonder he exclaimed. Dirk's face, as he entered, showed white in the lamplight; and he nearly knocked down Neeltje, who was just removing a heavy dish. He flung a paper on the table before Adrian.

"Read that, Mynheer! Read that, gentlemen all!" he cried in Dutch.

Amazed at such behaviour in composed, modest, respectful Dirk, Adrian took it up with vague wonder. His first words were-" It is written by hand."

"Ay, truly; written by hand," said Dirk. "Were any printer in Antwerp bold enough to set that up in type, he would never set type again—he would be torn into a thousand pieces. But printed it is -sown broadcast in every town under Spanish rule, ay, and through the Empire, through the world. It is in German, Spanish, Italian, French. A German copy was brought here by one coming from Namur; the Commandant of the Town Guard has it, and I, having friends in the Guard, got leave to copy it." "The

Adrian glanced his eye over the paper. Ban of the Empire," he read. "What, in Heaven's name, does it all mean?" he asked, looking at Dirk.

"Can't you see, Mynheer?" said Dirk, with a sort of gasp. "It seems like treason, even to say the word." Then with more composure, and speaking to them all. "I did not copy the Preamble, in which the Prince's offences are set

forth at length. I think, Mynheer, we can make the list out for ourselves. Though it might not occur to us to lay the Spanish Fury to his charge, nor-nor to write vile words about that gracious lady the Princess, because her father forced her into a nunnery in her childhood."

"Then this thing is the Ban of the Empire, the sentence of outlawry against the Prince. Put forth by the King of Spain," said Adrian, dropping the paper as if it were a serpent.

"Will it please you to read it, Mynheer?" said Dirk with flaming eyes.

"I will read, if you like," volunteered the merchant who sat next to Adrian, putting on a pair of great, gold-rimmed spectacles.

All listened breathless while he read aloud the words, which will live in History, as they deserve to do, for there is a dread immortality of shame as well as of glory :

666

:

'For these causes, we declare him traitor and miscreant; enemy of ourselves and of the country. As such, we banish him perpetually from all cur realms, forbidding all our subjects, of whatever quality, to communicate with him openly or privately, to administer to him victuals, drink, fire or other necessaries. We allow all to injure him in property or life. We expose the said William Nassau as an enemy of the human race, giving his property to all who may seize it. And if any one of our subjects, or any stranger, should be found sufficiently generous of heart to rid us of this pest

"It is infamous ! I can read no more," said the honest citizen, throwing down the paper. "Go on, Mynheer, go on!" cried Dirk. worst is to come."

"The

The reader took up the paper and went on, slowly and reluctantly :"And if any one of our subjects or any stranger, should be found sufficiently generous of heart to rid us of this pest, delivering him to us alive or dead, or taking his life, we shall cause to be furnished to him, immediately after the deed shal have been done, the sum of 25,000 crowns in gold. If he have committed any crime, however heinous, we promise to pardon him, and if he is not already noble, we will ennoble him for his valour.'"

"Who, after that, would be a noble of Spain?" said the merchant.

of

"I doubt if he has," Adrian mused. "I think, after all, he may be wise, with the horrible wisdom of the devil his master. There be scores ruffians, in every town in Europe, who would risk death and torture for a much less guerdon than 25,000 crowns in gold."

"Not to talk of that precious patent of nobility," sneered the merchant.

"My friend, the thing is past a sneer," said Adrian sadly. "The cunning of it is as great as the vileness-or the meanness," he added bitterly. "Never, surely, since great princes went to war,

did they deal with one another after such fashion as that! Chivalry of Spain, forsooth! Whom the King of Spain cannot conquer in the field he hires assassins to slay. Not the first time he has done it, nor the second."

"Whom he cannot conquer, or buy, you might add," said the merchant. "It is well known he bid high for the Prince, through Don John."

Then Doctor Hasselaer spoke, with cool deliberate emphasis. "Men have ever accounted of me as a merciful man, soft of heart. But this I tell you, if any scoundrel is caught here trying to earn that gold, I shall stand by the rack and the wheel, and lend the torturers the best of my skill. Tis the only way with such ruffians. What do they care for mere death, weighed against the chance of such a prize as that?"

No one shuddered, except the ladies, and they but a little, for it was the sixteenth century, not the nineteenth. Moreover, the Doctor's words, though horrible, were quite true.

Adrian turned towards him, "Then you see, as I do, the diabolical craft of this thing?"

66

Ay," Maldeer threw in. "And it seems to me that the craft, if not the wickedness, is too great to have sprung from the unaided mind of King Philip. My masters, do you not see behind the mask of Philip, the baleful grin of that old for the Cardinal? We all know how, of how long time he has hated the Prince."

"I believe you are right there, Mynheer Doctor," Dirk said modestly. "The officers of the Guard are all saying it is inspired by Cardinal Granville."

A sudden silence fell upon the party. Maldeer and Dirk were much surprised. They two, and the pastor's wife, were the only persons present who did not know that Adrian Pernet was the kinsman of Antoine Perrenot, Cardinal Granville.

"My good friends," Adrian said at last, looking round with a smile on his abashed and silent guests, "you may all speak your minds here without fear or favour. Time was when I refused to curse the Cardinal, even at the hazard of my life, because he had been a good kinsman toe but, if so be his hand is in this thing, I do d curse him now, only because I leave that to God!" His voice trembled with the strength of his emotion.

"Well spoken, Doctor!" the merchant said. Then rising, he proposed the health of their host, Dr. Adrian Pernet, true friend of the Protestant faith, and of the liberty of the Netherlands.

This gave the signal for the little party to break up. Finding himself for a moment alone with Dirk, Adrian laid his hand kindly on his shoulder. "You never knew, did you, that you were ministering to the kinsman of the wicked Cardinal?"

66

No, Mynheer Doctor. I knew Mynbeer Wallingford sometimes called you M. Perrenot, but I thought that was only his French way of talking."

"Do you love me the less for it, Dirk?" "God forbid!"

The hand on his shoulder tightened a little, but Adrian did not speak.