...
For there, in full view beyond the clear glass stood a tall, black
figure, masked to the mouth, who held in his out-stretched hands a wide
silver dish, in which lay something white and round and slashed with
crimson....
PART IV
CHAPTER I
I
"There is no more to be said, then," said Marjorie, and leaned back,
with a white, exhausted face. "We can do no more."
* * * * *
It was a little council of Papists that was gathered--a year after the
Queen's death at Fotheringay--in Mistress Manners' parlour. Mr. John
FitzHerbert was there; he had ridden up an hour before with heavy news
from Padley and its messenger. Mistress Alice was there, quiet as ever,
yet paler and thinner than in former years (Mistress Babington herself
had gone back to her family last year). And, last, Robin himself was
there, having himself borne the news from Derby.
He had had an eventful year, yet never yet had he come within reach of
the pursuivant. But he had largely effected this by the particular care
which he had observed with regard to Matstead, and his silence as to his
own identity. Extraordinary care, too, was observed by his friends, who
had learned by now to call him even in private by his alias; and it
appeared certain that beyond a dozen or two of discreet persons it was
utterly unsuspected that the stately bearded young gentleman named Mr.
Robert Alban--the "man of God," as, like other priests, he was commonly
called amongst the Catholics--had any connection whatever with the
hawking, hunting, and hard-riding lover of Mistress Manners.
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