“Not been from home?”

“No, sir—­not out of the house, except that he was walking in the pleasaunce half an hour ago.”

Robin ran up the steps and through the screens to see if his father was still there; but the little walled garden, so far as he could see it in the light from the hall windows, was empty; and, indeed, it would be strange for any man to walk in such a place at such an hour.  He wondered, too, to hear that his father had not been from home; for on all days, except he were ill, he would be about the estate, here and there.  As he came back to the screens he heard a step going up and down in the hall, and on looking in met his father face to face.  The old man had his hat on his head, but no cloak on his shoulders, though even with the fire the place was cold.  It was plain that he had been walking up and down to warm himself.  Robin could not make out his face very well, as he stood with his back to a torch.

“Where have you been, my lad?”

“I went to meet Anthony at one of the Dethick farms, sir—­John Merton’s.”

“You met no one else?”

“Yes, sir; Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert was there and dined with us.  He rode with us, too, a little way.”  And then as he was on the point of speaking of the priest, he stopped himself; and in an instant knew that never again must he speak of a priest to his father; his father had already lost his right to that.  His father looked at him a moment, standing with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Have you heard anything of a priest that is newly come to these parts—­or coming?”

“Yes, sir.  I hear mass is to be said ... in the district on Sunday.”

“Where is mass to be said?”

Robin drew along breath, lifted his eyes to his father’s and then dropped them again.

“Did you hear me, sir?  Where is mass to be said?”

Again Robin lifted and again dropped his eyes.

“What is the priest’s name?”

Again there was dead silence.  For a son, in those days, so to behave towards his father, was an act of very defiance.  Yet the father said nothing.  There the two remained; Robin with his eyes on the ground, expecting a storm of words or a blow in the face.  Yet he knew he could do no otherwise; the moment had come at last and he must act as he would be obliged always to act hereafter.

Matters had matured swiftly in the boy’s mind, all unconsciously to himself.  Perhaps it was the timid air of the priest he had met an hour ago that consummated the process.  At least it was so consummated.

Then his father turned suddenly on his heel; and the son went out trembling.

CHAPTER III

I

“I will speak to you to-night, sir, after supper,” said his father sharply a second day later, when Robin, meeting his father setting out before dinner, had asked him to give him an hour’s talk.