volving
such highly-placed personages from the Queen of England downwards, that
discretion was safer than curiosity.

* * * * *

It was growing towards dark when Robin, after long and fruitless staring
down the castle road, turned himself to the other. The parlour was empty
at this hour except for himself.

He saw the group gathering as usual at the entrance to the bridge to
watch the arrivals from London, who, if there were any, generally came
about this time.

Then, as he looked, he saw two horsemen mount the further slope of the
bridge, and come full into view.

Now there was nothing whatever about these two persons, in outward
appearance, to explain the strange effect they had upon the priest. They
could not possibly be the party for which he was watching. Mr. Beale
would certainly come with a great company. They were, besides, plainly
no more than serving-men: one wore some kind of a livery; the other, a
strongly-built man who sat his horse awkwardly, was in new clothes that
did not fit him. They rode ordinary hackneys; and each had luggage
strapped behind his saddle. All this the priest saw as they came up the
narrow street and halted before the inn door. They might, perhaps, be
servants of Mr. Beale; yet that did not seem probable as there was no
sign of a following party. The landlord came out on to the steps
beneath; and after a word or two, they slipped off their horses wearily,
and led them round into the court of the inn.

All this was usual enough; the priest had seen such arrivals a dozen
times at this very door; yet he felt sick as he looked at them. There
appeared to him something terrible and sinister about them. He had seen
the face of the liveried servant; but not of the other: this one had
carried his head low, with his great hat drawn down on his head. The
priest wondered, too, what they carried in their trunks.

* * * * *

When he went down to supper in the great room of the inn, he could not
forbear looking round for them. But only one was to be seen--the
liveried servant who had done the talking.

Robin turned to his neighbour--a lawyer with whom he had spoken a few
times.

"That is a new livery to me," he said, nodding towards the stranger.

"That?" said the lawyer. "That? Why, that is the livery of Mr.
Walsingham. I have seen it in London."

* * * * *

Towards the end of supper a stir b