her abed now three parts of the year. For
the rest, the letters were dull enough reading to one who did not
understand them: the news the lad had to give was of a kind that must be
disguised, lest the letters should fall into other hands, since it
concerned the coming and going of priests whose names must not appear.
Yet, for all that, the letters were laid up in a press, and the heap
grew slowly.

It was Mr. Anthony Babington who was come now to see her, and it was
his third visit since the summer. But she knew well enough what he was
come for, since his young wife, whom he had married last year, was no
use to him in such matters: she had lately had a child, too, and lived
quietly at Dethick with her women. His letters, too, would come at
intervals, carried by a rider, or sometimes some farmer's man on his way
home from Derby, and these letters, too, held dull reading enough for
such as were not in the secret. Yet the magistrates at Derby would have
given a good sum if they could have intercepted and understood them.

It was in the upper parlour now that she received him. A fire was
burning there, as it had burned so long ago, when Robin found her fresh
from her linen, and Anthony sat down in the same place. She sat by the
window, with the paper in her hands at which she had been writing when
she first saw him.

He had news for her, of two kinds, and, like a man, gave her first that
which she least wished to hear. (She had first showed him the paper.)

"That was the very matter I was come about," he said. "You have only a
few of the names, I see. Now the rest will be over before Christmas, and
will all be in London together."

"Can you not give me the names?" she said.

"I could give you the names, certainly. And I will do so before I leave;
I have them here. But--Mistress Marjorie, could you not come to London
with me? It would ease the case very much."

"Why, I could not," she said. "My mother--And what good would it
serve?"

"This is how the matter stands," said Anthony, crossing his legs. "We
have a dozen priests coming all together--at least, they will not travel
together, of course; but they will all reach London before Christmas,
and there they will hold counsel as to who shall go to the districts.
Eight of them, I have no doubt, will come to the north. There are as
many priests in the south as are safe at the present time--or as are
needed. Now if you were to come with me, mistress--with a serving-mai