Marjorie came to him in the parlour downstairs. She nodded her head
slowly and gravely.
"It is over," she said; and sat down.
"And there was no priest?"
She said nothing.
She was in her house-dress, with the hood drawn over her head as it was
a cold night. He was amazed at her look of self-control; he had thought
to find her either collapsed or strainedly tragic: he had wondered as he
came how he would speak to her, how he would soothe her, and he saw
there was no need.
She told him presently of the sudden turn for the worse early that
morning as she herself fell asleep by the bedside; and a little of what
had passed during the day. Then she stopped short as she approached the
end.
"Have you heard the news from London?" she said. "I mean, of our priests
there?"
His young face grew troubled, and he knit his forehead.
"They are in ward," he said; "I heard a week ago.... They will banish
them from England--they dare not do more!"
"It is all finished," she said quietly.
"What!"
"They were hanged at Tyburn three days ago--the three of them together."
He drew a hissing breath, and felt the skin of his face tingle.
"You have heard that?"
"Mr. Babington came to tell me last night. He left a paper with me: I
have not read it yet."
He watched her as she drew it out and put it before him. The terror was
on him, as once or twice before in his journeyings, or as when the news
of Mr. Nelson's death had reached him--a terror which shamed him to the
heart, and which he loathed yet could not overcome.
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