his youth had sat with his parents in the nave of the old Cluniac church of St. James to hear mass.  He had then entered his father’s office in Derby, about the time that the Religious Houses had fallen, and had transferred the scene of his worship to St. Peter’s.  At Queen Mary’s accession, he had stood, with mild but genuine enthusiasm, in his lawyer’s gown, in the train of the sheriff who proclaimed her in Derby market-place; and stood in the crowd, with corresponding dismay, six years later to shout for Queen Elizabeth.  Since that date, for the first eleven years he had gone, as did other Catholics, to his parish church secretly, thankful that there was no doubt as to the priesthood of his parson, to hear the English prayers; and then, to do him justice, though he heard with something resembling consternation the decision from Rome that compromise must cease and that, henceforth, all true Catholics must withdraw themselves from the national worship, he had obeyed without even a serious moment of consideration.  He had always feared that it might be so, understanding that delay in the decision was only caused by the hope that even now the breach might not be final or complete; and so was better prepared for the blow when it came.  Since that time he had heard mass when he could, and occasionally even harboured priests, urged thereto by his wife and daughter; and, for the rest, still went into Derby for three or four days a week to carry on his lawyer’s business, with Mr. Biddell his partner, and had the reputation of a sound and careful man without bigotry or passion.

It was, then, a shock to his love of peace and serenity, to hear that yet another Catholic house had fallen, and that Mr. Audrey, one of his clients, could no longer be reckoned as one of his co-religionists.

The next point for his reflection was that Robin was refusing to follow his father’s example; the third, that somebody must harbour the boy over Easter, and that, in his daughter’s violently expressed opinion, and with his wife’s consent, he, Thomas Manners, was the proper person to do it.  Last, that it was plain that there was something between his daughter and this boy, though what that was he had been unable to understand.  Marjorie had flown suddenly from the room just as he was beginning to put his questions.

It is no wonder, then, that his peace of mind was gone.  Not only were large principles once more threatened—­considerations of religion and loyalty, but also those small and intimate principles which, so far more than great ones, agitate the mind of the individual.  He did not wish to lose a client; yet neither did he wish to be unfriendly to a young confessor for the faith.  Still less did he wish to lose his daughter, above all to a young man whose prospects seemed to be vanishing.  He wondered whether it would be prudent to consult Mr. Biddell on the point....

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