She had told herself fiercely as she came
downstairs just now, that it could not be. No news was come from
Fotheringay all the winter; it was common knowledge that her Grace had a
priest of her own. And now that this was John Merton's son--
She smiled.
"Give me the letter," she said. "I should have known you, too, if it
were not for the dark."
"Well, mistress," he said, "the letter was to be delivered to you, Mr.
Melville said; but--"
"Who?"
"Mr. Melville, mistress: her Grace's steward at Fotheringay."
* * * * *
He talked on a moment or two, beginning to say that Mr. Melville himself
had come out to the inn, that he, as Melville's own servant, had been
lodging there, and had been bidden to hold himself in readiness, since
he knew Derbyshire.... But she was not listening. She only knew that
that had fallen which she feared.
"Give me the letter," she said again.
He sat down, excusing himself, and fumbled with his boot; and by the
time that he held it out to her, she was in the thick of the conflict.
She knew well enough what it meant--that there was no peril in all
England like that to which this letter called her friend, there, waiting
for him in Fotheringay where every strange face was suspected, where a
Popish priest was as a sheep in a den of wolves, where there would be no
mercy at all if he were discovered; and where, if he were to be of use
at all, he must adventure himself in the very spot where he would be
most suspected, on a task that would be thought the last word in treason
and disobedience.
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