Babington's sister knew anything, except that, indeed, it
was there. Again, there was the death of Father Campion--the very man
whom she had taken as a symbol of the Faith for which she fought with
her woman's wits; there was the news that came so suddenly and terribly
now and again, of one more priest gone to his death.... It was like the
slow rising of a storm: the air darkens; a stillness falls on the
countryside; the chirp of the birds seems as a plaintive word of fear;
then the thunder begins--a low murmur far across the horizons; then a
whisk of light, seen and gone again, and another murmur after it. And so
it gathers, dusk on dusk, stillness on stillness, murmur on murmur,
deepening and thickening; yet still no rain, but a drop or two that
falls and ceases again. And from the very delay it is all the more
dreadful; for the storm itself must break some time, and the artillery
war in the heavens, and the rain rush down, and flash follow flash, and
peal peal, and the climax come.
So, then, it was with her. There was no drawing back now, even had she
wished it. And she wished it indeed, though she did not will it; she
knew that she must stand in her place, now more than ever, when the blow
had fallen so near. Now more than ever must she be discreet and
resolute, since Padley itself was fallen, in effect, if not in fact; and
Booth's Edge, in this valley at least, was the one hope of hunted men.
She must stand, then, in her place; she must plot and conspire and
scheme; she must govern her face and her manner more perfectly than
ever, for the sake of that tremendous Cause.
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