her give
nor take away."

And he added a few words of exhortation and encouragement, bidding them
fear nothing whatever might come upon them in the future; to hold fast
to the faith once delivered to the saints, and so to attain the heavenly
crown. He was not eloquent, for he was but a young man newly come from
college, with no great gifts. Yet not a soul there looked upon him, on
his innocent, wondering eyes and his quivering lips, but was moved by
what he saw and heard.

The priest signed himself with the cross, and turned again to continue
the mass.

II

"You tell me, then," said the girl quietly, "that all is as it was with
you? God has told you nothing?"

Robin was silent.

* * * * *

Mass had been done an hour or more, and for the most part the company
was dispersed again, after refreshment spread in the hall, except for
those who were to stay to dinner, and these two had slipped away at last
to talk together in the woods; for the court was still filled with
servants coming and going, and the parlours occupied. In one the ladies
were still busy with the altar furniture; in the other the priest sat to
talk in private with those who were come from a distance; and as for the
hall--this, too, was in the hands of the servants, since not less than
thirty gentle folk were to dine there that day.

Robin had come to Booth's Edge at the beginning of Passion week, and had
been there ever since. He had refrained, at Marjorie's entreaty, from
speaking of her to her parents; and they, too, ruled by their daughter,
had held their tongues on the matter. Everything else, however, had
been discussed--the effect of the squire's apostasy, the alternatives
that presented themselves to the boy, the future behaviour of him to his
father--all these things had been spoken of; and even the priest called
into council during the last two or three days. Yet not much had come of
it. If the worst came to the worst, the lawyer had offered the boy a
place in his office; Anthony Babington had proposed his coming to
Dethick if his father turned him out; while Robin himself inclined to a
third alternative--the begging of his father to give him a sum of money
and be rid of him; after which he proposed, with youthful vagueness, to
set off for London and see what he could do there.

Marjorie, however, had seemed strangely uninterested in such proposals.
She had listened with patience, bowing her head in asse