in one
manner, though utterly removed, in another. It was as when a friend was
dead: his familiar presence is gone; but now that one physical barrier
is vanished, his presence is there, closer than ever, though in another
fashion....

* * * * *

Robin had come in to sup. Captain Fortescue would fetch him about nine
o'clock, and the two were to ride for the coast before dawn.

The four sat quiet after supper, speaking in subdued voices, of hopes
for the future, when England should be besieged, indeed, by the
spiritual forces that were gathering overseas; but they slipped
gradually into talk of the past and of Derbyshire, and of rides they
remembered. Then, after a while, Anthony was called away; Mistress Alice
moved back to the table to see her needlework the better, and Robin and
Marjorie sat together by the fire.

* * * * *

He told her again of the journey from Rheims, of the inns where they
lodged, of the extraordinary care that was taken, even in that Catholic
land, that no rumour of the nature of the party should slip out, lest
some gossip precede them or even follow them to the coast of England.
They carried themselves even there, he said, as ordinary gentlemen
travelling together; two of them were supposed to be lawyers; he himself
passed as Mr. Ballard's servant. They heard mass when they could in the
larger towns, but even then not all together.

The landing in England had been easier, he said, than he had thought,
though he had learned afterwards that a helpful young man, who had
offered to show him to an inn in Folkestone, and in whose presence Mr.
Ballard had taken care to give him a good rating for dropping a
bag--with loud oaths--was a well-known informer. However, no harm was
done: Mr. Ballard's admirable bearing, and his oaths in particular, had
seemed to satisfy the young man, and he had troubled them no more.

Marjorie did not say much. She listened with a fierce attention, so much
interested that she was scarcely aware of her own interest; she looked
up, half betrayed into annoyance, when a placid laugh from Mistress
Alice at the table showed that another was listening too.

She too, then, had to give her news, and to receive messages for the
Derbyshire folk whom Robin wished to greet; and it was not until
Mistress Alice slipped out of the room that she uttered a word of what
she had been hoping all day she might have an opportuni