“The beginning of the end,” he answered in a hollow tone.

“They have out-voted you?” cried the young wife.  “Baersdorp and the other cowards want to negotiate?”

Peter drew himself up to his full height, and exclaimed in a loud, threatening tone: 

“Guard your tongue!  He who remains steadfast until his children die and corpses bar the way in front of his own house, he who bears the responsibility of a thousand deaths, endures curses and imprecations through long weeks, and has vainly hoped for deliverance during more than a third of a year—­he who, wherever he looks, sees nothing save unprecedented, constantly increasing misery and then no longer repels the saving hand of the foe—­”

“Is a coward, a traitor, who breaks the sacred oath he has sworn.”

“Maria,” cried Peter angrily, approaching with a threatening gesture.

She drew her slender figure up to its full height and with quickened breath awaited him, pointing her finger at him, as she exclaimed with a sharp tone perceptible through the slight tremor in her voice: 

“You, you have voted with the Baersdorps, you, Peter Van der Werff!  You have done this thing, you, the friend of the Prince, the shield and providence of this brave city, you, the man who received the oaths of the citizens, the martyr’s son, the servant of liberty—­”

“No more!” he interrupted, trembling with shame and rage.  “Do you know what it is to bear the guilt of this most terrible suffering before God and men?”

“Yes, yes, thrice yes; it is laying one’s heart on the rack, to save Holland and liberty.  That is what it means!  Oh, God, my God!  You are lost!  You intend to negotiate with Valdez!”

“And suppose I do?” asked the burgomaster, with an angry gesture.

Maria looked him sternly in the eye, and exclaimed in a loud, resolute tone: 

“Then it will be my turn to say:  Go to Delft; we need different men here.”

The burgomaster turned pale and bent his eyes on the floor, while she fearlessly confronted him with a steady glance.

The light fell full upon her glowing face, and when Peter again raised his eyes, it seemed as if the same Maria stood before him, who as a bride had vowed to share trouble and peril with him, remain steadfast in the struggle for liberty to the end; he felt that his “child” Maria had grown to his own height and above him, recognized for the first time in the proud woman before him his companion in conflict, his high-hearted helper in distress and danger.  An overmastering yearning, mightier than any emotion ever experienced before, surged through his soul, impelled him towards her, and found utterance in the words: 

“Maria, Maria, my wife, my guardian angel!  We have written to Valdez, but there is still time,—­nothing binds me yet, and with you, with you I will stand firm to the end.”

Then, in the midst of these days of woe, she threw herself on his breast, crying aloud in the abundance of this new, unexpected, unutterable happiness: