for Easter. Tell your father that
you cannot change your religion simply because he tells you so. I do not
see what else is to be done. He will think, perhaps, that if you have a
little time to think you will come over to him. Well, that is not so,
but it may make it easier for him to believe it for a while.... You must
go somewhere where there is a priest.... Where can you go?"

Robin considered.

"I could go to Dethick," he said.

"That is not far enough away, I think."

"I could come here," he suggested artfully.

A smile lit in her eyes, shone in her mouth, and passed again into
seriousness.

"That is scarcely a mile further," she said. "We must think.... Will he
be very angry, Robin?"

Robin smiled grimly.

"I have never withstood him in a great affair," he said. "He is angry
enough over little things."

"Poor Robin!"

"Oh! he is not unjust to me. He is a good father to me."

"That makes it all the sadder," she said.

"And there is no other way?" he asked presently.

She glanced at him.

"Unless you would withstand him to the face. Would you do that, Robin?"

"I will do anything you tell me," he said simply.

"You darling!... Well, Robin, listen to me. It is very plain that sooner
or later you will have to withstand him. You cannot go away every time
there is communion at Matstead, or, indeed, every Sunday. Your father
would have to pay the fines for you, I have no doubt, unless you went
away altogether. But I think you had better go away for this time. He
will almost expect it, I think. At first he will think that you will
yield to him; and then, little by little (unless God's grace brings
himself back to the Faith), he will learn to understand that you will
not. But it will be easier for him that way; and he will have time to
think what to do with you, too.... Robin, what would you do if you went
away?"

Robin considered again.

"I can read and write," he said. "I am a Latinist: I can train falcons
and hounds and break horses. I do not know if there is anything else
that I can do."

"You darling!" she said again.

* * * * *

These two, as will have been seen, were as simple as children, and as
serious. Children are not gay and light-hearted, except now and then
(just as men and women are not serious except now and then). They are
grave and considering: all that they lack is experience. These two,
then, were real children; they were grave and serious beca