that ought not to be. To those who hold that men are no better,
except for their brains, than other animals; that they are but, after
all, bundles of sense from which all love and aspiration take their
rise--to such the thing will seem simply false. They will say that it
was not so; that all that strange yearning that Marjorie had to see the
man back again; that the excitement that beat in Robin's heart as he had
ridden up the well-remembered slope, all in the dark, and had seen the
lighted windows at the top; that these were but the old loves in the
disguise of piety. But to those who understand what priesthood is, for
him that receives it, and for the soul that reverences it, the thing is
a truism. For the priest was one who loved Christ more than all the
world; and the woman one who loved priesthood more than herself.

Yet her memories of him that remained in her had, of course, a place in
her heart; and, though she knelt before him presently in the little
parlour where once he had kneeled before her, as simply as a child
before her father, and told her sins, and received Christ's pardon, and
went away to make room for the next--though all this was without a
reproach in her eyes; yet, as she went she knew that she must face a
fresh struggle, and a temptation that would not have been one-tenth so
fierce if it had been some other priest that was in peril. That peril
was Fotheringay, where (as she knew well enough) every strange face
would be scrutinized as perhaps nowhere else in all England; and that
temptation lay in the knowledge that when that letter should come (as
she knew in her heart it would come), it would be through her hands that
it would pass--if it passed indeed.

* * * * *

While the others went to the priest one by one, Marjorie kneeled in her
room, fighting with a devil that was not yet come to her, as is the way
with sensitive consciences.

CHAPTER VI

I

The suspense at Fotheringay grew deeper with every day that passed.

Christmas was come and gone, and no sign was made from London, so far,
at least, as the little town was concerned. There came almost daily from
the castle new tales of slights put upon the Queen, and now and again of
new favours granted to her. Her chaplain, withdrawn for a while, had
been admitted to her again a week before Christmas; a crowd had
collected to see the Popish priest ride in, and had remarked on his
timorous air; and abo