It was delightful to Robin to hear her praised, and he talked of her keenly and volubly.  Exactly that had happened which five years ago he would have thought impossible; for every trace of his old feeling towards her was gone, leaving behind, and that only in the very deepest intimacies of his thought, a sweet and pleasant romance, like the glow in the sky when the sun is gone down.  Little by little that had come about which, in Marjorie, had transformed her when she first sent him to Rheims.  It was not that reaction had followed; there was no contempt, either of her or of himself, for what he had once thought of her; but another great passion had risen above it—­a passion of which the human lover cannot even guess, kindled for one that is greater than man; a passion fed, trained and pruned by those six years of studious peace at Rheims, directed by experts in humanity.  There he had seen what Love could do when it could rise higher than its human channels; he had seen young men, scarcely older than himself, set out for England, as for their bridals, exultant and on fire; and back to Rheims had come again the news of their martyrdom:  this one died, crying to Jesu as a home-coming child cries to his mother at the garden-gate; this one had said nothing upon the scaffold, but his face (they said who brought the news) had been as the face of Stephen at his stoning; and others had come back themselves, banished, with pain of death on their returning, yet back once more these had gone.  And, last, more than once, there had crept back to Rheims, borne on a litter all the way from the coast, the phantom of a man who a year or two ago had played “cat” and shouted at the play—­now a bent man, grey-haired, with great scars on wrists and ankles.... Te Deums had been sung in the college chapel when the news of the deaths had come:  there were no requiems for such as these; and the place of the martyr in the refectory was decked with flowers....  Robin had seen these things, and wondered whether his place, too, would some day be so decked.

For Marjorie, then, he felt nothing but a happy friendliness, and a real delight when he thought of seeing her again.  It was glorious, he thought, that she had done so much; that her name was in all men’s mouths.  And he had thought, when he had first gone to Rheims, that he would do all and she nothing!  He had written to her then, freely and happily.  He had told her that she must give him shelter some day, as she was doing for so many.

Meanwhile it was pleasant to hear her praises.

“‘Eve would be Eve,’” quoted Mr. Charnoc presently, in speaking of pious women’s obstinacy, “‘though Adam would say Nay.’”

* * * * *

Then, at last, when Mr. Charnoc said that he must be leaving for his own lodgings, and stood up; once more upon Robin’s heart there fell the horrible memory of all that he had heard upstairs.

CHAPTER II