wall, the pinnacles
of the chapel in another, and a row of further windows that might be
lodgings in a third; but from without here nothing was certain, except
the gigantic keep, that stood high to the west, and the strong towers
that guarded the drawbridge; this, as he went by, was lowered to its
place, and he could look across it into the archway, where four men
stood on guard with their pikes. The inner doors, however, were closed
beyond them, and he could see nothing of the inner moat that surrounded
the court, nor the yard itself. Neither did he think it prudent to ask
any questions, though he looked freely about him; since the part he must
play for the present plainly was that of one who had a right here and
knew what he did.

He came back to the inn an hour later, after a walk through the village
and round the locked church: this was a splendid building, with flying
buttresses and a high tower, with exterior carvings of saints and
evangelists all in place. But it looked desolate to him, and he was the
more dejected, as he seemed no nearer to the Queen than before, and with
little chance of getting there. Meanwhile, there was but one thing to be
done, and that the hardest of all--to wait. Perhaps in a few days he
might get speech with Mr. Bourgoign; yet for the present than, too, as
the priest had told him, was out of the question.

III

Five days were gone by, Sunday had come and gone, and yet there had been
no news, except a letter conveyed to him by Merton, written by Mr.
Bourgoign himself, telling him that he had news that Mr. Beale, the
Clerk of the Council, was to arrive some time that week, and that this
presaged the approach of the end. He would, therefore, do his utmost
within the next few days to approach Sir Amyas and ask for the admission
of the young herbalist who had done her Grace so much good at Chartley.
He added that if any question were to be raised as to why he had been so
long in the place, and why, indeed, he had come at all, he was to answer
fearlessly that Mr. Bourgoign had sent for him.

On the Sunday night Robin could not sleep. Little by little the hideous
suspense was acting upon him, and the knowledge that not a hundred yards
away from him the wonderful woman whom he had seen at Chartley, the
loving and humble Catholic, who had kneeled so ardently before her Lord,
the Queen who had received from him the sacraments for which she
thirsted--the knowledge that she was breaking her he