The Knight understood this as a signal to withdraw, and accordingly
took his leave.

The lady, on his departure, instead of talking with the child,
returned her the missal with no excuse, and drawing the letter of
Father Le Vieux from her bosom, commenced reading it again.

"My judgment, then," she murmured, "is confirmed by that of the holy
father. Thus writes he: 'I fear, my daughter, that the leaven hath not
done its perfect office. There be many called, but alas, how few are
fit for the work! In some things hesitancy is a deadly sin. Let the
faint hearted step aside, that more vigorous souls may take their
place.' Whatever may be the consequences," she continued to herself,
"I feel cheered, in that my course will be approved by the father.
Thou knowest, holy Mary, that it was through no ignoble motive, but
only for thy glory I did this thing, whereof, alas! my poor woman's
heart more than half repented. Oh! pity, that one endowed with so many
gracious qualities as Sir Christopher, should lack the iron firmness
which gives consistency and dignity to life, and that his weakness
compelled me to that which I would not, for the world, his noble
nature should suspect: But since this letter from the father, no doubt
assails me. The course I have adopted I will pursue, nor shall my
constant soul falter. Sooner shall the needle desert the beloved
pole."

The face of the woman assumed an expression of indomitable resolution.
She looked like one incapable of a weakness--like one who, mastered by
an engrossing purpose, feels that all else is trivial, and to be as
little regarded as the dust which the traveller shakes from his soiled
garment.

CHAPTER XXV.

He hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues,
A dismal, universal hiss.

PARADISE LOST.

When Arundel arrived at the little settlement, he proceeded
straightway to the hostelry, which was his usual stopping place, and
as he entered, was met by the landlord with those demonstrations of
welcome, wherewith the publican is in the habit of greeting his
customers.

"So you have got safe off from them bloody salvages, (praised be the
Lord for all his mercies)," said goodman Nettles. "And you look
browner, as though you'd caught some of their color from being with
them, but hearty as my tapster, Zachariah Sider, who can begin with
the head of an ox, and never stop till he wipes his mouth with the
tuft on the end of the tail, wa