But these matters were aloof from her; rather
she pondered such things as the execution of two more priests at York in
August, Mr. Lacy and Mr. Kirkman, and of a third, Mr. Thompson, in
November at the same place. It was on such affairs as these that she
pondered as she went about her household business, or sat in the chamber
upstairs with Mistress Alice; and it was of these things that she talked
with the few priests that came and went from time to time in their
circuits about Derbyshire. It was a life of quietness and monotony
inconceivable by those who live in towns. Its sole incident lay in that
life which is called Interior....
It was soon after the New Year that she met the squire of Matstead face
to face.
* * * * *
She and Alice, with Janet and a man riding behind, were on their way
back from Derby, where they had gone for their monthly shopping. They
had slept at Dethick, and had had news there of Mr. Anthony, who was
again in the south on one of his mysterious missions, and started again
soon after dawn next day to reach home, if they could, for dinner.
She knew Alice now for what she was--a woman of astounding dullness, of
sterling character, and of a complete inability to understand any shades
or tones of character or thought that were not her own, and yet a friend
in a thousand, of an immovable stability and loyalty, one of no words at
all, who dwelt in the midst of a steady kind of light which knew no dawn
nor sunset.
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