Antonio, the Portuguese pretender; it was proposed to occupy Terceira
in the Azores; and Drake and Hawkins entertained the highest hopes of
laying their hands on further plunder.

She was leaning back in her seat, with her hands behind her head,
thinking over her relations with Hubert. When he had been at home at the
end of the previous year, he had apparently taken it for granted that the
marriage would be celebrated; he had given her the gold nugget, that she
had showed Anthony, telling her he had brought it home for the
wedding-ring; and she understood that he was to come for his final answer
as soon as his work at Plymouth was over. But not a word of explanation
had passed between them on the religious difficulty. He had silenced her
emphatically and kindly once when she had approached it; and she gathered
from his manner that he suspected the direction in which her mind was
turning and was generously unwilling for her to commit herself an inch
further than she saw. Else whence came his assurance? And, for herself,
things were indeed becoming plain: she wondered why she had hesitated so
long, why she was still hesitating; the cup was brimming above the edge;
it needed but a faint touch of stimulus to precipitate all.

And so Isabel lay back and pondered, with a touch of happy impatience at
the workings of her own soul; for she dared not act without the final
touch of conviction. Mistress Margaret had taught her that the swiftest
flight of the soul was when there was least movement, when the soul knew
how to throw itself with that supreme effort of cessation into the Hands
of God, that He might bear it along: when, after informing the intellect
and seeking by prayer for God's bounty, the humble client of Heaven
waited with uplifted eyes and ready heart until God should answer. And so
she waited, knowing that the gift was at hand, yet not daring to snatch
it. But, in the meanwhile, her imagination at least might act without
restraint; so she sent it out, like a bird from the Ark, to bring her the
earnest of peace. There, in the cloister-wing, somewhere, lay the chapel,
where she and Hubert would kneel together;--somewhere beneath that grey
roof. That was the terrace where she would walk one day as one who has a
right there. Which of these windows would be hers? Not Lady Maxwell's, of
course; she must keep that.... Ah! how good God was!

The tall door on to the terrace opened, and Mistress Margaret peered out
with a