services she might wish. Further, they had decided
that the best thing to do was to go themselves to Derby next day, in
order to be at hand; since Mr. John was in London, and the sooner Mrs.
Thomas had friends with her, the better.

"They may keep him in ward a long time," said Mistress Alice, "before
they bring him into open court--to try his courage. That is the way they
do. The charge, no doubt, will be that he has harboured and assisted
priests."

* * * * *

It seemed to Marjorie, as she lay awake that night, staring through the
summer dusk at the tall press which hid so much beside her dresses, that
the course on which her life moved was coming near to the rapids. Ever
since she had first put her hand to the work, ever since, even, she had
first offered her lover to God and let him go from her, it appeared as
if God had taken her at her word, and accepted in an instant that which
she offered so tremblingly. Her sight of London--the great buildings,
the crowds, the visible forces of the Crown, the company of gallant
gentlemen who were priests beneath their ruffs and feathers, the Tower,
her glimpse of Topcliffe--these things had shown her the dreadful
reality that lay behind this gentle scheming up in Derbyshire. Again,
there was Mr. Babington; here, too, she had perceived a mystery which
she could not understand: something moved behind the surface of which
not even Mr. Babington's sister knew anything, except that, indeed, it
was there. Again, there was the death of Father Campion--the very man
whom she had taken as a symbol of the Faith for which she fought with
her woman's wits; there was the news that came so suddenly and terribly
now and again, of one more priest gone to his death.... It was like the
slow rising of a storm: the air darkens; a stillness falls on the
countryside; the chirp of the birds seems as a plaintive word of fear;
then the thunder begins--a low murmur far across the horizons; then a
whisk of light, seen and gone again, and another murmur after it. And so
it gathers, dusk on dusk, stillness on stillness, murmur on murmur,
deepening and thickening; yet still no rain, but a drop or two that
falls and ceases again. And from the very delay it is all the more
dreadful; for the storm itself must break some time, and the artillery
war in the heavens, and the rain rush down, and flash follow flash, and
peal peal, and the climax come.

So, then, it was with her. The