The Laughing Cavalier - Baroness Orczy (chapter books to read to 5 year olds .txt) 📗

of infinite relief, escaped the Lord of Stoutenburg’s lips. Though he knew that the man in any case could have no proof if he accused Nicolaes, yet there was great satisfaction in this unqualified confession. Slowly the prisoner turned his head and looked upon his triumphant enemy, and it was the man with the pinioned arms, with the tattered clothes and the stained shirt who seemed to tower in pride, in swagger and in defiance while the other looked just what he was⁠—a craven and miserable cur.

Once more there was silence in the low-raftered room. From Gilda’s eyes the tears fell slowly one by one. She could not have told you herself why she was crying at this moment. Her brother’s image stood out clearly before her wholly vindicated of treachery, and a scoundrel had been brought to his knees, self-confessed as a liar, a forger and a thief; the Lord of Stoutenburg was proved to have been faithful and true, and yet Gilda felt such a pain in her heart that she thought it must break.

The Lord of Stoutenburg at last broke the silence which had become oppressive.

“Are you satisfied, Gilda?” he asked tenderly.

“I feel happier,” she replied softly, “than I have felt these four days past, at thought that my own brother at least⁠—nor you, my lord⁠—had a hand in all this treachery.”

She would not look again on the prisoner, even though she felt more than she saw, that a distinctly humorous twinkle had once more crept into his eyes. It seemed however, as if she wished to say something else, something kind and compassionate, but Stoutenburg broke in impatiently:

“May I dismiss the fellow now?” he asked. “Jan is waiting for orders outside.”

“Then I pray you call to Jan,” she rejoined stiffly.

“The rogue is securely pinioned,” he added even as he turned toward the door. “I pray you have no fear of him.”

“I have no fear,” she said simply.

Stoutenburg strode out of the room and anon his harsh voice was heard calling to Jan.

For a moment then Gilda was alone⁠—for the third time now⁠—with the man whom she had hated more than she had ever hated a human creature before. She remembered how last night and again at Leyden she had been conscious of an overpowering desire to wound him with hard and bitter words. But now she no longer felt that desire, since Fate had hurt him more cruelly than she had wished to do. He was standing there now before her, in all the glory of his magnificent physique, yet infinitely shamed and disgraced, self-confessed of every mean and horrible crime that has ever degraded manhood.

Yet in spite of this shame he still looked splendid and untamed: though his arms were bound to a pinion behind his back, his broad chest was not sunken, and he held himself very erect with that leonine head of his thrown well back and a smile of defiance, almost of triumph, sat upon every line of his face.

Anon she met his eyes; their glance compelled and held her own. There was nothing but kindly humour within their depths. Humour, ye gods! whence came the humour of the situation! Here was a man condemned to death by an implacable enemy who was not like to show any mercy, and Gilda herself⁠—remembering all his crimes⁠—could no longer bring herself to ask for mercy for him, and yet the man seemed only to mock, to smile at fate, to take his present desperate position as lightly and as airily as another would take a pleasing turn of fortune’s wheel.

Conscious at last that his look of unconquerable good-humour was working upon her nerves, Gilda forced herself to break the spell of numbness which had so unaccountably fallen upon her.

“I should like to say to you, sir,” she murmured, “how deeply I regret the many harsh words I spoke to you at Leyden and⁠ ⁠… and also last night⁠ ⁠… believe me there was no feeling in me of cruelty toward you when I spoke them.”

“Indeed, mejuffrouw,” he rejoined placidly, whilst the gentle mockery in his glance became more accentuated, “indeed I am sure that your harshness towards me was only dictated by your kindliness. Believe me,” he added lightly, “your words that evening at Leyden, and again last night were most excellent discipline for my temper: for this do I thank you! they have helped me to bear subsequent events with greater equanimity.”

She bit her lip, feeling vexed at his flippancy. A man on the point of death should take the last hours of his life more seriously.

“It grieved me to see,” she resumed somewhat more stiffly, “that one who could on occasions be so brave, should on others stoop to such infamous tricks.”

“Man is ever a creature of opportunity, mejuffrouw,” he said imperturbably.

“But I remembered you⁠—you see⁠—on New Year’s Eve in the Dam Straat when you held up a mob to protect an unfortunate girl; oh! it was bravely done!”

“Yet believe me, mejuffrouw,” he said with a whimsical smile, “that though I own appearances somewhat belie me, I have done better since.”

“I wish I could believe you, sir. But since then⁠ ⁠… oh! think of my horror when I recognized you the next day⁠—at Leyden⁠—after your cowardly attack upon me.”

“Indeed I have thought of it already, mejuffrouw. Dondersteen! I must have appeared a coward before you then!”

He gave a careless shrug of the shoulders, and very quaintly did that carelessness sit on him now that he was pinioned, wounded and in a relentless enemy’s hands.

“Perhaps I am a coward,” he added with a strange little sigh, “you think so; the Lord of Stoutenburg declares that I am a miserable cur. Does man ever know himself? I for one have never been worth the study.”

“Nay, sir, there you do wrong yourself,” she said gently, “I cannot rightly gauge what temptations did beset you when you laid hands upon a defenceless woman, or when you forged my