slowly, watching him. "He was taken a
week ago."

"Will they banish him, then?"

"I think they will banish him."

"Why, yes--it is the first time he hath been taken. And there is
nothing great against him?"

"I think there is not," said Anthony, still with that strange
deliberateness.

"Why do you look at me like that?"

Anthony stood up without answering. Then he began to pace about. As he
passed the door he looked to the bolt carefully. Then he turned again to
his friend.

"Robin," he said, "would you sooner know a truth that will make you
unhappy, or be ignorant of it?"

"Does it concern myself or my business?" asked Robin promptly.

"It concerns you and every priest and every Catholic in England. It is
what I have hinted to you before."

"Then I will hear it."

"It is as if I told it in confession?"

Robin paused.

"You may make it so," he said, "if you choose."

Anthony looked at him an instant. "Well," he said, "I will not make a
confession, because there is no use in that now--but--Well, listen!" he
said, and sat down.

II

When he ceased, Robin lifted his head. He was as white as a sheet.

"You have been refused absolution before for this?"

"I was refused absolution by two priests; but I was granted it by a
third."

"Let me see that I have the tale right.

"Yourself, with a number of others, have bound yourselves by an oath to
kill her Grace, and to set Mary on the throne. This has taken shape now
since the beginning of the summer. You yourself are now living in Mr.
Walsingham's house, in Seething Lane, under the patronage of her Grace,
and you show yourself freely at court. You have proceeded so far, under
fear of Mr. Ballard's arrest, as to provide one of your company with
clothes and necessaries that can enable him to go to court; and it was
your intention, as well as his, that he should take opportunity to kill
her Grace. But to-day only you have become persuaded that the old design
was the better; and you wish first to arrange matters with the Queen of
the Scots, so that when all is ready, you may be the more sure of a
rising when that her Grace is killed, and that the Duke of Parma may be
in readiness to bring an army into England. It is still your intention
to kill her Grace?"

"By God! it is!" said Anthony, between clenched teeth.

"Then I could not absolve you, even if you came to confession. You may
be absolved from your allegiance, as we all are; but you are not
abso