urageously and deny that he was a priest? He would have a far better
excuse for letting him go.

"Knock again," he cried.

And again the thunder rang through the archway, and the summons in the
Queen's name to open.

Then at last a light shone beneath the door. (It was brightening rapidly
towards the dawn here in the open air, but within it would still be
dark.) Then a voice grumbled within.

"Who is there?"

"Man," bellowed the magistrate, "open the door and have done with it. I
tell you I am a magistrate!"

There was silence. Then the voice came again.

"How do I know that you are?"

Mr. Audrey slipped off his horse, scrambled to the door, set his hands
on his knees and his mouth to the keyhole.

"Open the door, you fool, in the Queen's name.... I am Mr. Audrey, of
Matstead."

Again came the pause. The magistrate was in the act of turning to bid
his men beat the door in, when once more the voice came.

"I'll tell the mistress, sir.... She's a-bed."

* * * * *

His discomfort grew on him as he waited, staring out at the fast
yellowing sky. (Beneath him the slopes towards the valley and the
far-off hills on the other side appeared like a pencil drawing,
delicate, minute and colourless, or, at the most, faintly tinted in
phantoms of their own colours. The sky, too, was grey with the night
mists not yet dissolved.) It was an unneighbourly action, this of his,
he thought. He must do his best to make it as little offensive as he
could. He turned to his men.

"Now, men," he said, glaring like a judge, "no violence here, unless I
give the order. No breaking of aught in the house. The lady here is a
friend of mine; and--"

The great bolts shot back suddenly; he turned as the door opened; and
there, pale as milk, with eyes that seemed a-fire, Marjorie's face was
looking at him; she was wrapped in her long cloak and her hood was drawn
over her head. The space behind was crowded with faces, unrecognizable
in the shadow.

* * * * *

He saluted her.

"Mistress Manners," he said, "I am sorry to incommode you in this way.
But a couple of fellows tell me that a man hath come this way, whom they
think to be a priest. I am a magistrate, mistress, and--"

He stopped, confounded by her face. It was not like her face at all--the
face, rather, seemed as nothing; her whole soul was in her eyes, crying
to him some message that he could not understand. It a