poor girl had fainted away in the chair where she sat, evidently from sheer hunger and fatigue. Van der Werf hastened to a closet, took out a bottle, and forced some cordial between her set teeth. As he chafed her cold hands he murmured:
“Poor, poor little girl! Thou hast borne thy share of this cursed trouble nobly and well—that I know from De Witt himself. Thou shalt have every comfort and help that I can render thee!” Jacqueline soon returned to consciousness, but the burgomaster would not yet allow her to leave, and insisted that she drink another glass of the revivifying, cordial. When she was quite herself again, he sent her back to Belfry Lane with a large basket of food from his own larder, which he had despatched a soldier to procure.
“It is not much,” he apologized, “for we are hard put to it ourselves for sustenance now. But it is at least something I can do for so faithful a helper. See that thou dost
