on the point.

"The Jesuit is too simple," he said suddenly, as he strode about. "I
think--" He broke off.

His sister smiled upon him placidly.

"You are too hot, Anthony," she said.

The man turned sharply towards her.

"All the praying in the world," he said, "has not saved us so far. It
seems to me time--"

"Perhaps our Lord would not have us saved," she said; "as you mean it."

III

It was not until Christmas Eve that Marjorie went to St. Paul's, for all
that it was so close. But the days were taken up with the visitors; a
hundred matters had to be arranged; for it was decided that before the
New Year all were to be dispersed. Captain Fortescue and Robin were to
leave again for the Continent on the day following Christmas Day itself.

Marjorie made acquaintance during these days with more than one
meeting-place of the Catholics in London. One was a quiet little house
near St. Bartholomew's-the-Great, where a widow had three or four sets
of lodgings, occupied frequently by priests and by other Catholics, who
were best out of sight; and it was here that mass was to be said on
Christmas Day. Another was in the Spanish Embassy; and here, to her joy,
she looked openly upon a chapel of her faith, and from the gallery
adored her Lord in the tabernacle. But even this was accomplished with
an air of uneasiness in those round her; the Spanish priest who took
them in walked quickly and interrupted them before they were done, and
seemed glad to see the last of them. It was explained to Marjorie that
the ambassador did not wish to give causeless offence to the Protestant
court.

And now, on Christmas Eve, Robin, Anthony and the two ladies entered the
Cathedral as dusk was falling--first passing through the burial-ground,
over the wall of which leaned the rows of houses in whose windows lights
were beginning to burn.

The very dimness of the air made the enormous heights of the great
church more impressive. Before them stretched the long nave, over seven
hundred feet from end to end; from floor to roof the eye travelled up
the bunches of slender pillars to the dark ceiling, newly restored after
the fire, a hundred and fifty feet. The tall windows on either side, and
the clerestory lights above, glimmered faintly in the darkening light.

But to the Catholic eyes that looked on it the desolation was more
apparent than the splendour. There were plenty of people here, indeed:
groups moved up and down, talking, dire