for the asking."

"You are a good woman, Frances," answered her brother, with more feeling
than he usually showed, "and I would I were more like you."

"Tarry not there, Tom: go on to `I would I were more like Christ.'
There be wishes that fulfil themselves; and aspirations after God be of
that nature. And now, dear brother, I commend thee to God, and to the
word of His grace. Be thou strong in the Lord, and in the power of His
might!"

They kissed each other for the last time, and Mrs Collenwood stood
listening to the slow, heavy step which passed up the stairs and into
the bedroom overhead. When Mr Roberts had shut and barred his door,
she took up the key, and with a sigh which had reference rather to his
future than to her present, went to seek Pandora. Their little packages
of immediate necessaries were soon made up. When the clock struck
midnight--an hour at which in 1557 everybody was in bed--two well
cloaked and hooded women crept out of the low-silled window of the
dinning-room, and made their silent and solitary way through the shrubs
of the pleasure-ground to the little wicket-gate which opened on the
Goudhurst road.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

POTS AND PANS.

Mrs Collenwood unlocked the little wicket, and let herself and Pandora
out into the public road. Then she relocked the gate, and after a
moment's thought, feeling in the darkness, she hung the key on a bush
close to the gate, where it could not be seen from the road. Both
ladies carried lanterns, for the omission of this custom would have
raised more suspicion than its observance, had they been met by any one,
and there were no public street lamps in those days. They were bound
first for the little hostelry, called the Nun's Head, in the village of
Lamberhurst, where Mrs Collenwood had desired her servant to await her;
the landlady of which was known to those in the secret to be one of "the
brethren," and was therefore sure to befriend and not betray them, if
she guessed the truth. Slowly and painfully they made their way by a
circuitous route, to avoid passing through Goudhurst, and Pandora, who
was not much accustomed to walking, began to be very tired before half
the way was traversed. They had just reached the road again, and were
making their way slowly through the ruts and puddles--for English roads
at that date were in a state which happily we can do little more than
imagine--when they heard the sound of hoofs a little way behind