"_Christus!_!" roared Joris, "challenge me one hundred times. A fool I
would be to answer you. Life my God gave to me. Well, then, only my God
shall from me take it. See you these arms and hands? In them you will be
as the child of one year. Ere beyond my reason you move me, _go_!" and
he strode to the door and flung it open with a passion that made every
one in the store straighten themselves, and look curiously toward the
two men.

White with rage, and with his hand upon his sword-hilt, Captain Hyde
stamped his way through the crowded store to the dusty street. Then it
struck him that he had not asked the name of the man to whom Katharine
was promised. He swore at himself for the omission. Whether he knew him
or not, he was determined to fight him. In the meantime, the most
practical revenge was to try and see Katherine before her father had the
opportunity to give her any orders regarding him. Just then he met Neil
Semple, and he stopped and asked him the time.

"It will be the half hour after four, Captain. I am going home; shall I
have your company, sir?"

"I have not much leisure to-night. Make a thousand regrets to Madam
Semple and my aunt for me."

Neil's calm, complacent gravity was unendurable. He turned from him
abruptly, and, muttering passionate exclamations, went to the river-bank
for a boat. Often he had seen Katherine between five and six o'clock at
the foot of the Van Heemskirk garden; for it was then possible for her
to slip away while madam was busy about her house, and Joanna and
Batavius talking over their own affairs. And this evening he felt that