The very day he had been through—­the Sunday on which he could neither say nor even hear mass (for, because of the greatness of that which was at stake, he had thought it wiser to bring with him nothing that could arouse suspicion)—­and the hearing of the bells from the church calling to Protestant prayers, and the sight of the crowds going and returning—­this brought him lower than he had been since his first coming to England.  He lay then in the darkness, turning from side to side, thinking of these things, listening to the breathing of the young man who lay on blankets at the foot of his bed.

About midnight he could lie there no longer.  He got out of bed noiselessly, stepped across the other, went to the window-seat and sat down there, staring out, with eyes well accustomed to the darkness, towards the vast outline against the sky which he knew was the keep of the castle.  No light burned there to relieve its brutality.  It remained there, implacable as English justice, immovable as the heart of Elizabeth and the composure of the gaoler who kept it....  Then he drew out Mr. Maine’s rosary and began to recite the “Sorrowful Mysteries."...

He supposed afterwards that he had begun to doze; but he started, wide-awake, at a sudden glare of light in his eyes, as if a beacon had flared for an instant somewhere within the castle enclosure.  It was gone again, however; there remained the steady monstrous mass of building and the heavy sky.  Then, as he watched, it came again, without warning and without sound—­that same brilliant flare of light, against which the towers and walls stood out pitch-black.  A third time it came, and all was dark once more.

* * * * *

In the morning, as he sat over his ale in the tavern below, he listened, without lifting his eyes, engrossed, it seemed, in a little book he was reading, to the excited talk of a group of soldiers.  One of them, he said, had been on guard beneath the Queen’s windows last night, and between midnight and one o’clock had seen three times a brilliant light explode itself, like soundless gunpowder, immediately over the room where she slept.  And this he asserted, over and over again.

IV

On the following Saturday John Merton came up into the room where the priest was sleeping after dinner and awakened him.

“If you will come at once with me, sir, you can have speech with Mr. Bourgoign.  My master has sent me to tell you so; Mr. Bourgoign has leave to go out.”

Robin said nothing.  It was the kind of opportunity that must not be imperilled by a single word that might be overheard.  He threw on his great cloak, buckled his sword on, and followed with every nerve awake.  They went up the street leading towards the church, and turned down a little passage-way between two of the larger houses; the young man pushed on a door in the wall; and Robin went through, to find himself in a little enclosed garden with Mr. Bourgoign gathering herbs from the border, not a yard from him.  The physician said nothing; he glanced sharply up and pointed to a seat set under the shelter of the wall that hid the greater part of the garden from the house to which it belonged; and as Robin reached it, Mr. Bourgoign, still gathering his herbs, began to speak in an undertone.