Let us see the fire, will ye ?" His off-hand way disarmed all suspicion.

And soon after the party agreed that the kitchen of the "Three Kings" was much warmer than Peter's house, and they departed, having first untied Martin.
"Take note, mate, that I was right, and the burgomaster wrong," said Dierich Brower at the door; "I said we should be too late to catch him, and we were too late." Thus Gerard, in one terrible night, grazed the prison and the grave.
And how did he get clear at last?
Not by his cunningly contrived hiding-place, nor by Margaret's ready wit; but by a good impulse in one of his captors, by the bit of humanity left in a somewhat reckless fellow's heart, aided by his desire of gain.

So mixed and seemingly incongruous are human motives, so shortsighted our shrewdest counsels.
They whose moderate natures or gentle fates keep them, in life's passage, from the fierce extremes of joy and anguish our nature is capable of, are perhaps the best, and certainly the happiest of mankind.

But to such readers I should try in vain to convey what bliss unspeakable settled now upon these persecuted lovers, Even to those who have joyed greatly and greatly suffered, my feeble art can present but a pale reflection of Margaret's and Gerard's ecstasy.
To sit and see a beloved face come back from the grave to the world, to health and beauty, by swift gradations; to see the roses return to the loved cheek, love's glance to the loved eye, and his words to the loved mouth--this was Margaret's--a joy to balance years of sorrow.

It was Gerard's to awake from a trance, and find his head pillowed on Margaret's arm; to hear the woman he adored murmur new words of eloquent love, and shower tears and tender kisses and caresses on him.