immediately if there seemed to
be any disturbance or threatening of it; but the men were very quiet. Mr.
Musgrave was there, she saw, sitting with his pipe, on the stocks, and
Piers, the young Irish bailiff, was standing near; they all were silent
as the girl came up, and saluted her respectfully as usual; and she saw
no signs of any dangerous element. There were one or two older women with
the men, and others were standing at their open doors on all sides as she
went up. The Rectory gate was locked, and no one was to be seen within.

Supper was laid in Sir Nicholas' room, as it generally was, and as it had
been two nights ago; and it was very strange to Isabel to know that it
was here that the arrest had taken place; the floor, too, she noticed as
she came in, all about the threshold was scratched and dented by rough
boots.

Lady Maxwell was very silent and distracted during supper; she made
efforts to talk again and again, and her sister did her best to interest
her and keep her talking; but she always relapsed after a minute or two
into silence again, with long glances round the room, at the Vernacle
over the fireplace, the prie-dieu with the shield of the Five Wounds
above it, and all the things that spoke so keenly of her husband.

What a strange room it was, too, thought Isabel, with its odd mingling of
the two worlds, with the tapestry of the hawking scene and the stiff
herons and ladies on horseback on one side, and the little shelf of
devotional books on the other; and yet how characteristic of its owner
who fingered his cross-bow or the reins of his horse all day, and his
beads in the evening; and how strange that an old man like Sir Nicholas,
who knew the world, and had as much sense apparently as any one else,
should be willing to sacrifice home and property and even life itself,
for these so plainly empty superstitious things that could not please a
God that was Spirit and Truth! So Isabel thought to herself, with no
bitterness or contempt, but just a simple wonder and amazement, as she
looked at the painted tokens and trinkets.

It was still daylight when they went upstairs to Lady Maxwell's room
about seven, but the clear southern sky over the yew hedges and the tall
elms where the rooks were circling, was beginning to be flushed with deep
amber and rose. Isabel sat down in the window seat with the sweet air
pouring in and looked out on to the garden with its tiled paths and its
cool green squares of