“Well, mistress; it was not of you that I meant to speak—­so much as of your friends.  They are your friends, not mine.  And as your friends, I thought it to be a kindly action to send them an advertisement.  If they are not careful, there will be trouble.”

“At Padley?”

“At Padley, or elsewhere.  It is the persons that fall under the law, not places!”

“But, sir, you are a magistrate; and—­”

He sprang up, his face aflame with real wrath.

“Yes, mistress; I am a magistrate:  the commission hath come at last, after six months’ waiting.  But I was friend to the FitzHerberts before ever I was a magistrate, and—­”

Then she understood; and her heart went out to him.  She, too, stood up, catching at the table with a hiss of pain as she threw her weight on the bruised foot.  He made a movement towards her; but she waved him aside.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Audrey, with all my heart.  I had thought that you meant harm, perhaps, to my friends and me.  But now I see—­”

“Not a word more! not a word more!” he cried harshly, with a desperate kind of gesture.  “I shall do my duty none the less when the time comes—­”

“Sir!” she cried out suddenly.  “For God’s sake do not speak of duty—­there is another duty greater than that.  Mr. Audrey—­”

He wheeled away from her, with a movement she could not interpret.  It might be uncontrolled anger or misery, equally.  And her heart went out to him in one great flood.

“Mr. Audrey.  It is not too late.  Your son Robin—­”

Then he wheeled again; and his face was distorted with emotion.

“Yes, my son Robin! my son Robin!...  How dare you speak of him to me?...  Yes; that is it—­my son Robin—­my son Robin!”

He dropped into the chair again, and his face fell upon his clasped hands.

IV

She scarcely knew how circumstances had arranged themselves up to the time when she found herself riding away again with Alice, while a man of Mr. Audrey’s led her horse.  They could not talk freely till he left them at the place where the stony road turned to a soft track, and it was safe going once more.  Then Alice told her own side of it.

“Yes, my dear; I heard him call out.  I was walking in the hall with Janet to keep ourselves warm.  But when I ran in he was sitting down, and you were standing.  What was the matter?”

“Alice,” said the girl earnestly, “I wish you had not come in.  He is very heart-broken, I think.  He would have told me more, I think.  It is about his son.”

“His son!  Why, he—­”

“Yes; I know that.  And he would not see him if he came back.  He has had his magistrate’s commission; and he will be true to it.  But he is heart-broken for all that.  He has not really lost the Faith, I think.”

“Why, my dear; that is foolish.  He is very hot in Derby, I hear, against the Papists.  There was a poor woman who could not pay her fines; and—­”