must be careful. I am riding for London. My men
are in the valley. Mistress Marjorie--"

She waved him aside. The blood was beginning again to beat swiftly and
deafeningly in her ears, and the word came back.

"I ... I was shocked," she said; "... you must pardon me.... Is it
certain?"

He tore out a bundle of papers from behind his cloak, detached one with
shaking hands and thrust it before her.

She sat down and spread it on the table. But his voice broke in and
interrupted her all the while.

"They were all three taken together, in the summer.... I ... have been
in France; my letters never reached me.... They were racked
continually.... They died all together; praying for the Queen ... at
Tyburn.... Campion died the first...."

She pushed the paper from her; the close handwriting was no more to her
than black marks on the paper. She passed her hands over her forehead
and eyes.

"Mistress Marjorie, you look like death. See, I will leave the paper
with you. It is from one of my friends who was there...."

The door was pushed open, and the servant came in, bearing a tray.

"Set it down," said Marjorie, as coolly as if death and horror were as
far from her as an hour ago.

She nodded sharply to the maid, who went out again; then she rose and
spread the food within the man's reach. He began to eat and drink,
talking all the time.

* * * * *

As she sat and watched him and listened, remembering afterwards, as if
mechanically, all that he said, she was contemplating something else.
She seemed to see Campion, not as he had been three days ago, not as he
was now ... but as she had seen him in London--alert, brisk, quick. Even
the tones of his voice were with her, and the swift merry look in his
eyes.... Somewhere on the outskirts of her thought there hung other
presences: the darkness, the blood, the smoking cauldron.... Oh! she
would have to face these presently; she would go through this night, she
knew, looking at all their terror. But just now let her remember him as
he had been; let her keep off all other thoughts so long as she
could....

II

When she had heard the horse's footsteps scramble down the little steep
ascent in the dark, and then pass into silence on the turf beyond, she
closed the outer door, barred it once more, and then went back straight
into the hall, where the lantern still burned among the plates. She
dared not face her mother yet; she must learn how