“Justice!” was all she answered him very piteously, and yet with a certain fierceness of insistence.
“None asks it of me in vain, I hope,” he answered gravely. “But I do not dispense it from the saddle in the public street. Follow us.”
She followed to the Prinssenhof with her grooms and her woman Catherine. There she was made to wait in a great hall, thronged with grooms and men-at-arms and huntsmen, who were draining the measure sent them by the Duke. She stood apart, wrapped in her tragic sorrow, and none molested her. At last a chamberlain came to summon her to the Duke's presence.
In a spacious, sparsely furnished room she found the Duke awaiting her, wearing now a gown of black and gold that was trimmed with rich fur. He sat in a tall chair of oak and leather, and leaning on the back of it lounged gracefully the lovely scarlet youth who had ridden at his side.
Standing before him, with drooping eyes and folded hands, she told her shameful story. Darker and darker grew his brow as she proceeded with it. But it was the gloom of doubt rather than of anger.
“Rhynsault?” he cried when she had done. “Rhynsault did this?”
There was incredulity in his voice and nothing else.
The youth behind him laughed softly, and shifted his attitude.
“You are surprised. Yet what else was to be looked for in that Teuton swine? Me he never could deceive, for all his--”
“Be silent, Arnault,” said the Duke sharply. And to the woman: “It is a grave, grave charge,” he said, “against a man I trusted and have esteemed, else I should not have placed him where he is. What proof have you?”
She proffered him a strip of parchment--the signed order for the gaol delivery of Philip Danvelt.
“The gaoler of Middelburg will tell Your Grace that he was hanged already when I presented this. My woman Catherine, whom I have with me, can testify to part. And there are some other servants who can bear witness to my husband's innocence. Captain von Rhynsault had ceased to doubt it.”
He studied the parchment, and fell very grave and thoughtful.
“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.