was
using.

"Why, yes," she said. "Come as you would come to any Catholic
neighbours. But no more than that.... You are to be a priest."

* * * * *

The spring air was full of softness and sweetness as they stood there.
On the trees behind them and on the roses in front the budding leaves
had burst into delicate green, and the copses on all sides sounded with
the twittering of birds. The whole world, it seemed, was kindling with
love and freshness. Yet these two had to stand here and be cold, one to
the other.... He was to be a priest; that must not be forgotten, and
they must meet no more on the old footing. That was gone. Already he
stood among the Levites, at least in intention; and the Lord alone was
to be the portion of his inheritance and his Cup.

It was a minute before either of them moved, and during that minute the
maid felt her courage ebb from her like an outgoing tide, leaving a
desolation behind. It was all that she could do not to cry out.

But when at last Robin made a movement and she had to look him in the
face, what she saw there braced and strengthened her.

"You are right, Mistress Marjorie," he said both gravely and kindly. "I
will bid you good-day and be getting to my horse."

He kissed her gently, as the manner was, and went down the path alone.

PART II

CHAPTER I

I

It was with a sudden leap of her heart that Marjorie, looking out of her
window at the late autumn landscape, her mind still running on the sheet
of paper that lay before her, saw a capped head, and then a horse's
crest, rise over the broken edge of land up which Robin had ridden so
often two and three years ago. Then she saw who was the rider, and laid
her pen down again.

* * * * *

It was two years since the lad had gone to Rheims, and it would be five
years more, she knew (since he was not over quick at his books), before
he would return a priest. She had letters from him: one would come now
and again, a month or two sometimes after the date of writing. It was
only in September that she had had the letter which he had written her
on hearing of her father's death, and Mr. Manners had died in June. She
had written back to him then, a discreet and modest letter enough,
telling him of how Mr. Simpson had read mass over the body before it was
taken down to Derby for the burying; and telling him, too, of her
mother's rheumatics that kept