* * * * *

He came back to the City across the fields, half a mile away from the river, and, indeed, it was a glorious sight he had before him.  Here, about him, was open ground on either side of the road on which he walked; and there, in front, rose up on the slope of the hill the long line of great old houses, beyond the stream that ran down into the Thames—­old Religious Houses for the most part, now disguised and pulled about beyond recognition, ranging right and left from the Ludgate itself:  behind these rose again towers and roofs, and high above all the tall spire of the Cathedral, as if to gather all into one, culminant aspiration....  The light from the west lay on every surface that looked to his left, golden and rosy; elsewhere lay blue and dusky shadows.

II

“There is a letter for you, air,” said the landlord, who had an uneasy look on his face, as the priest came through the entrance of the inn.

Robin took it.  Its superscription ran shortly:  “To Mr. Alban, at the Red Bull Inn in Cheapside.  Haste.  Haste.  Haste.”

He turned it over; it was sealed plainly on the back without arms or any device; it was a thick package, and appeared as if it might hold an enclosure or two.

Robin had learned caution in a good school, and what is yet more vital in true caution, an appearance of carelessness.  He weighed the packet easily in his hand, as if it were of no value, though he knew it might contain very questionable stuff from one of his friends, and glanced at a quantity of baggage that lay heaped beside the wall.

“What is all this?” he said.  “Another party arrived?”

“No, sir; the party is leaving.  Rather, it is left already; and the gentlemen bade me have the baggage ready here.  They would send for it later, they told me.”

This was unusually voluble from this man.  Robin looked at him quickly, and away again.

“What party?” he said.

“The gentlemen you were with this two nights past, sir,” said the landlord keenly.

Robin was aware of a feeling as if a finger had been laid on his heart; but not a muscle of his face moved.

“Indeed!” he said.  “They told me nothing of it.”

Then he moved on easily, feeling the landlord’s eyes in every inch of his back, and went leisurely upstairs.

He reached his room, bolted the door softly behind him, and sat down.  His heart was going now like a hammer.  Then he opened the packet; an enclosure fell out of it, also sealed, but without direction of any kind.  Then he saw that the sheet in which the packet had come was itself covered with writing, rather large and sprawling, as if written in haste.  He put the packet aside, and then lifted the paper to read it.

* * * * *

When he had finished, he sat quite still.  The room looked to him misty and unreal; the paper crackled in his shaking fingers, and a drop of sweat ran suddenly into the corner of his dry lips.  Then he read the paper again.  It ran as follows: