But it looked desolate to him, and he was the
more dejected, as he seemed no nearer to the Queen than before, and with
little chance of getting there. Meanwhile, there was but one thing to be
done, and that the hardest of all--to wait. Perhaps in a few days he
might get speech with Mr. Bourgoign; yet for the present than, too, as
the priest had told him, was out of the question.
III
Five days were gone by, Sunday had come and gone, and yet there had been
no news, except a letter conveyed to him by Merton, written by Mr.
Bourgoign himself, telling him that he had news that Mr. Beale, the
Clerk of the Council, was to arrive some time that week, and that this
presaged the approach of the end. He would, therefore, do his utmost
within the next few days to approach Sir Amyas and ask for the admission
of the young herbalist who had done her Grace so much good at Chartley.
He added that if any question were to be raised as to why he had been so
long in the place, and why, indeed, he had come at all, he was to answer
fearlessly that Mr. Bourgoign had sent for him.
On the Sunday night Robin could not sleep. Little by little the hideous
suspense was acting upon him, and the knowledge that not a hundred yards
away from him the wonderful woman whom he had seen at Chartley, the
loving and humble Catholic, who had kneeled so ardently before her Lord,
the Queen who had received from him the sacraments for which she
thirsted--the knowledge that she was breaking her heart, so near, for
the consolation which a priest only could give, and that he, a priest,
was free to go through all England, except through that towered gateway
past which he walked every day--this increased his misery and his
longing.
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