n his knees in the leaves, seized her hand and kissed it.

"Oh! you must forgive me," he said. "But ... but I cannot do it!"

III

It was a great occasion in the hall that Easter Day. The three tables,
which, according to custom, ran along the walls, were filled to-day with
guests; and a second dinner was to follow, scarcely less splendid than
the first, for their servants as well as for those of the household. The
floor was spread with new rushes; jugs of March beer, a full month old,
as it should be, were ranged down the tables; and by every plate lay a
posy of flowers. From the passage outside came the sound of music.

The feast began with the reading of the Gospel; at the close, Mr. John
struck with his hand upon the table as a signal for conversation; the
doors opened; the servants came in, and a babble of talk broke out. At
the high table the master of the house presided, with the priest on his
right, Mrs. Manners and Marjorie beyond him; on his left, Mrs. Fenton
and her lord. At the other two tables Mr. Thomas presided at one and Mr.
Babington at the other.

The talk was, of course, within the bounds of discretion; though once
and again sentences were spoken which would scarcely have pleased the
minister of the parish. For they were difficult times in which they
lived; and it is no wonder at all if bitterness mixed itself with
charity. Here was Mr. John, for instance, come to Padley expressly for
the selling of some meadows to meet his fines; here was his son Thomas,
the heir now, not only to Padley, but to Norbury, whose lord, his uncle,
lay in the Fleet Prison. Here was Mr. Fenton, who had suffered the like
in the matter of fines more than once. Hardly one of the folk there but
had paid a heavy price for his conscience; and all the worship that was
permitted to them, and that by circumstance, and not by law, was such as
they had engaged in that morning with shuttered windows and a sentinel
for fear that, too, should be silenced.

They talked, then, guardedly of those things, since the servants were in
and out continually, and though all professed the same faith as their
masters, yet these were times that tried loyalty hard. Mr. John, indeed,
gave news, of his brother Sir Thomas, and said how he did; and read a
letter, too, from Italy, from his younger brother Nicholas, who was fled
abroad after a year's prison at Oxford; but the climax of the talk came
when dinner was over, and the muscadel, with the mou