They talked a few minutes longer as to the way he must go and the provision that would be ready for him.  He must take no mass requisites with him.  David had made that a condition.  Then Robin suddenly changed the subject.

“Had my father any hand in this affair at Padley?”

“I am certain he had not.”

“They will execute Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam, will they not?”

She bowed her head in assent.

“The Summer Assizes open on the eighteenth,” she said.  “There is no doubt as to how all will go.”

Robin rose.

“It is time I were in bed,” he said, “if I must ride at one.”

The two women knelt for his blessing.

At one o’clock Marjorie heard the horse brought round.  She stepped softly to the window, knowing herself to be invisible, and peeped out.

All was as she had ordered.  There was no light of any kind:  she could make out but dimly in the summer darkness the two figures of horse and groom.  As she looked, a third figure appeared beneath; but there was no word spoken that she could hear.  This third figure mounted.  She caught her breath as she heard the horse scurry a little with freshness, since every sound seemed full of peril.  Then the mounted figure faded one way into the dark, and the groom another.

II

It was two weeks to the day that Robin received his letter.

* * * * *

He had never before been so long in utter solitude; for the visits of David did not break it; and, for other men, he saw none except a hog-herd or two in the distance once or twice.  The shepherd came but once a day, carrying a great jug and a parcel of food, and set them down without the hut; he seemed to avoid even looking within; but merely took the empty jug of the day before and went away again.  He was an old, bent man, with a face like a limestone cliff, grey and weather-beaten; he lived half the year up here in the wild Peak country, caring for a few sheep, and going down to the village not more than once or twice a week.  There was a little spring welling up in a hollow not fifty yards away from the hut, which itself stood in a deep, natural rift among the high hills, so that men might search for it a lifetime and not come across it.

Robin’s daily round was very simple.  He had leave to make a fire by day, but he must extinguish it at night lest its glow should be seen, so he began his morning by mixing a little oatmeal, and then preparing his dinner.  About noon, so near as he could judge by the sun, he dined; sometimes off a partridge or rabbit; on Fridays off half a dozen tiny trout; and set aside part of the cold food for supper; he had one good loaf of nearly black bread every day, and the single jug of small beer.