Again her mother smiled—­and this time she opened her eyes to the full, and there was no dismay in them, nor fear, nor disappointment; and she looked a little to her left, where the parted curtains showed the darkness of the room....

Then Marjorie closed her eyes, and laid her head on the bed where her mother’s body sank back and down into the pillows.  Then the girl slipped heavily to the floor, and the maids sprang up screaming.

IV

It was not till two hours later that Mr. Simpson arrived.  He had been found at last at Hathersage, only a few miles away, as one of the men, on his return ride, had made one last inquiry before coming home; and there he ran into the priest himself in the middle of the street.  The priest had taken the man’s horse and pushed on as well as he could through the dark, in the hopes he might yet be in time.

Marjorie came to him in the parlour downstairs.  She nodded her head slowly and gravely.

“It is over,” she said; and sat down.

“And there was no priest?”

She said nothing.

She was in her house-dress, with the hood drawn over her head as it was a cold night.  He was amazed at her look of self-control; he had thought to find her either collapsed or strainedly tragic:  he had wondered as he came how he would speak to her, how he would soothe her, and he saw there was no need.

She told him presently of the sudden turn for the worse early that morning as she herself fell asleep by the bedside; and a little of what had passed during the day.  Then she stopped short as she approached the end.

“Have you heard the news from London?” she said.  “I mean, of our priests there?”

His young face grew troubled, and he knit his forehead.

“They are in ward,” he said; “I heard a week ago....  They will banish them from England—­they dare not do more!”

“It is all finished,” she said quietly.

“What!”

“They were hanged at Tyburn three days ago—­the three of them together.”

He drew a hissing breath, and felt the skin of his face tingle.

“You have heard that?”

“Mr. Babington came to tell me last night.  He left a paper with me:  I have not read it yet.”

He watched her as she drew it out and put it before him.  The terror was on him, as once or twice before in his journeyings, or as when the news of Mr. Nelson’s death had reached him—­a terror which shamed him to the heart, and which he loathed yet could not overcome.  He still stared into her pale face.  Then he took the paper and began to read it.

* * * * *

Presently he laid it down again.  The sick terror was beginning to pass; or, rather, he was able to grip it; and he said a conventional word or two; he could do no more.  There was no exultation in his heart; nothing but misery.  And then, in despair, he left the subject.