“My love, what do you mean?”

Suddenly she made a swift movement towards him and took him by the lapels.  He could see her face close beneath his, yet it was in shadow again, and he could make out of it no more than the shadows of mouth and eyes.

“Robin,” she said, “I cannot tell you unless God tells you Himself.  I am told that I am too scrupulous sometimes....  I do not know what I think, nor what is right, nor what are fancies....  But ... but I know that I love you with all my heart ... and ... and that I cannot bear—­”

Then her face was on his breast in a passion of weeping, and his arms were round her, and his lips on her hair.

IV

Dick found his master a poor travelling companion as they rode home.  He made a few respectful remarks as to the sport of the day, but he was answered by a wandering eye and a complete lack of enthusiasm.  Mr. Robin rode loosely and heavily.  Three or four times his mare stumbled (and no wonder, after all that she had gone through), and he jerked her savagely.

Then Dick tried another tack and began to speak of the company, but with no greater success.  He discoursed on the riding of Mrs. Fenton, and the peregrine of Mr. Thomas, who had distinguished herself that day, and he was met by a lack-lustre eye once more.

Finally he began to speak of the religious gossip of the countryside—­how it was said that another priest, a Mr. Nelson, had been taken, in London, as Mr. Maine had been in Cornwall; that, it was said again, priests would have to look to their lives in future, and not only to their liberty; how the priest, Mr. Simpson, was said to be a native of Yorkshire, and how he was ridden northwards again, still with Mr. Ludlam.  And here he met with a little more encouragement.  Mr. Robin asked where was Mr. Simpson gone to, and Dick told him he did not know, but that he would be back again by Easter, it was thought, or, if not, another priest would be in the district.  Then he began to gossip of Mr. Ludlam; how a man had told him that his cousin’s wife thought that Mr. Ludlam was to go abroad to be made priest himself, and that perhaps Mr. Garlick would go too.

“That is the kind of priest we want, sir,” said Dick.

“Eh?”

“That is the kind of priest we want, sir,” repeated Dick solemnly.  “We should do better with natives than foreigners.  We want priests who know the county and the ways of the people—­and men too, I think, sir, who can ride and know something of sport, and can talk of it.  I told Mr. Simpson, sir, of the sport we were to have to-day, and he seemed to care nothing about it!”

Robin sighed aloud.

“I suppose so,” he said.