Yet, not for one moment did even her sensitive soul distrust any more
the nature of the love that she bore to the lad.
But Mistress Alice sat down again to her sewing.
CHAPTER V
I
Marjorie was sitting in her mother's room, while her mother slept. She
had been reading aloud from a bundle of letters--news from Rheims; but
little by little she had seen sleep come down on her mother's face, and
had let her voice trail away into silence. And so she sat quiet.
* * * * *
It seemed incredible that nearly a year had passed since her visit to
London, and that Christmas was upon them again. Yet in this remote
country place there was little to make time run slowly: the country-side
wheeled gently through the courses of the year; the trees put on their
green robes, changed them for russet and dropped them again; the dogs
and the horses grew a little older, a beast died now and again, and
others were born. The faces that she knew, servants and farmers, aged
imperceptibly. Here and there a family moved away, and another into its
place; an old man died and his son succeeded him, but the mother and
sisters lived on in the house in patriarchal fashion. Priests came and
went again unobserved; Marjorie went to the sacraments when she could,
and said her prayers always. But letters came more frequently than ever
to the little remote manor, carried now by some farm-servant, now left
by strangers, now presented as credentials; and Booth's Edge became
known in that underworld of the north, which finds no record in history,
as a safe place for folks in trouble for their faith.
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