s by a flash of lightning that she was on the road that
leadeth to destruction, and not content with that, was bearing her young
nieces along with her. She loved those girls as if she had been their
own mother. Grave, self-contained, and undemonstrative as she was, she
would almost have given her life for either, but especially for Pandora,
who in face, and to some extent in character, resembled her dead mother,
the sister who had been the darling of Grena Holland's heart. She
recalled with keen pain the half-astonished, half-shrinking look on
Pandora's face, as she had followed her to mass on the first holy-day
after her return from Lancashire. Grena knew well that at Shardeford
Hall, her mother's house in Lancashire, Pandora would never have been
required to attend mass, but would have been taught that it was "a fond
fable and a dangerous deceit." And now, she considered, that look had
passed from the girl's face; she went silently, not eagerly on the one
hand, yet unprotestingly, even by look, on the other. Forward into the
possible future went Grena's imagination--to the prison, and the
torture-chamber, and the public disgrace, and the awful death of fire.
How could she bear those, either for herself or for Pandora?

These painful meditations were broken in upon by a remark from the
Justice.

"There is some strong ale brewing, I warrant you, for some of our great
doctors and teachers of this vicinage. I heard t'other day, from one
that shall be nameless--indeed, I would not mention the matter, but we
be all friends and good Catholics here--"

Mistress Collenwood's eyes were lifted a moment from her plate, but then
went down again in silence.

"Well, I heard say two men of my Lord Cardinal's had already been
a-spying about these parts, for to win the names of such as were
suspect: and divers in and nigh Staplehurst shall hear more than they
wot of, ere many days be over. Mine hostess at the White Hart had best
look out, and--well, there be others; more in especial this Master Ro--
Come, I'll let be the rest."

"I trust you have not said too much already," remarked Mr Roberts
rather uneasily.

That the Justice also feared he had been indiscreet was shown by his
slight testiness in reply.

"Tush! how could I? There's never a serving-man in the chamber, and we
be all safe enough. Not the tail of a word shall creep forth, be sure."

"`Three may keep counsel, if twain be away,'" said Mr Roberts, shaking