passed out from the house
half an hour later, "I have one more word to say to you. Listen
carefully, if you please, for there is not much time."

He glanced behind him, but the tall figure was gone from the door; there
remained only the two pikemen that kept ward over the great house on the
steps.

"Come this way," said the physician, and led the priest through into the
little walled garden on the south. "He will think we are finishing our
consultation."

* * * * *

"I cannot tell you," he said presently, "all that I think of your
courage and your wit. You made a told stroke when you told him you would
begone again, unless you could see her Grace alone, and again when you
said you had come to Chartley because she was here. And you may go
again now, knowing you have comforted a woman in her greatest need. They
sent her chaplain from her when she left here for Tixall in July, and
she has not had him again yet. She is watched at every point. They have
taken all her papers from her, and have seduced M. Nau, I fear. Did you
hear anything of him in town?"

"No," said the priest. "I know nothing of him."

"He is a Frenchman, and hath been with her Grace more than ten years. He
hath written her letters for her, and been privy to all her counsels.
And I fear he hath been seduced from her at last. It was said that Mr.
Walsingham was to take him into his house.... Well, but we have not time
for this. What I have to ask you is whether you could come again to us?"

He peered at the priest almost timorously. Robin was startled.

"Come again?" he said. "Why--"

"You see you have already won to her presence, and Sir Amyas is
committed to it that you are a safe man. I shall tell her Grace, too,
that she must eat and drink well, and get better, if she would see you
again, for that will establish you in Sir Amyas' eyes."

"But will she not have a priest?"

"I know nothing, Mr. Alban. They even shut me up here when they took her
to Tixall; and even now none but myself and her two women have access to
her. I do not know even if her Grace will be left here. There has been
talk among the men of going to Fotheringay. I know nothing, from day to
day. It is a ... a _cauchemar_. But they will certainly do what they can
to shake her. It grows more rigorous every day. And I thought, that if
you would tell me whether a message could reach you, and if her chaplain
is not allowed to see her again, you might