ty to say.

"Mr. Audrey," she said (for she was careful to use this form of
address), "I wish you to pray for me. I do not know what to do."

He was silent.

"At present," she said, gathering courage, "my duty is clear. I must be
at home, for my mother's sake, if for nothing else. And, as I told you,
I think I shall be able to do something for priests. But if my mother
died--"

"Yes?" he said, as she stopped again.

She glanced up at his serious, deep-eyed face, half in shadow and half
in light, so familiar, and yet so utterly apart from the boy she had
known.

"Well," she said, "I think of you as a priest already, and I can speak
to you freely.... Well, I am not sure whether I, too, shall not go
overseas, to serve God better."

"You mean--"

"Yes. A dozen or more are gone from Derbyshire, whose names I know. Some
are gone to Bruges; two or three to Rome; two or three more to Spain. We
women cannot do what priests can, but, at least, we can serve God in
Religion."

She looked at him again, expecting an answer. She saw him move his head,
as if to answer. Then he smiled suddenly.

"Well, however you look at me, I am not a priest.... You had best speak
to one--Father Campion or another."

"But--"

"And I will pray for you," he said with an air of finality.

Then Mistress Alice came back.

* * * * *

She never forgot, all her life long, the little scene that took place
when Captain Fortescue came in with Mr. Babington, to fetch Robin away.
Yet the whole of its vividness rose from its interior significance.
Externally here was a quiet parlour; two ladies--for the girl afterwards
seemed to see herself in the picture--stood by the fireplace; Mistress
Alice still held her needlework gathered up in one hand, and her spools
of thread and a pin-cushion lay on the polished table. And the two
gentlemen--for Captain Fortescue would not sit down, and Robin had risen
at his entrance--the two gentlemen stood by it. They were not in their
boots, for they were not to ride till morning; they appeared two
ordinary gentlemen, each hat-in-hand, and Robin had his cloak across his
arm. Anthony Babington stood in the shadow by the door, and, beyond him,
the girl could see the face of Dick, who had come up to say good-bye
again to his old master.

That was all--four men and two ladies. None raised his voice, none made
a gesture. The home party spoke of the journey, and of their hopes that
all