It was a strange time that Marjorie had until two days later, when Robin came and told her all, and how it had fallen out.  For now, it seemed, she walked on air; now in shoes of lead.  When she was at her prayers (which was pretty often just now), and at other times, when the air lightened suddenly about her and the burdens of earth were lifted as if another hand were put to them—­at those times which every interior soul experiences in a period of stress—­why, then, all was glory, and she saw Robin as transfigured and herself beneath him all but adoring.  Little visions came and went before her imagination.  Robin riding, like some knight on an adventure, to do Christ’s work; Robin at the altar, in his vestments; Robin absolving penitents—­all in a rosy light of faith and romance.  She saw him even on the scaffold, undaunted and resolute, with God’s light on his face, and the crowd awed beneath him; she saw his soul entering heaven, with all the harps ringing to meet him, and eternity begun....  And then, at other times, when the heaviness came down on her, as clouds upon the Derbyshire hills, she understood nothing but that she had lost him; that he was not to be hers, but Another’s; that a loveless and empty life lay before her, and a womanhood that was without its fruition.  And it was this latter mood that fell on her, swift and entire, when, looking out from her window a little before dinner-time, she saw suddenly his hat, and Cecily’s head, jerking up the steep path that led to the house.

She fell on her knees by her bedside.

“Jesu!” she cried.  “Jesu!  Give me strength to meet him.”

* * * * *

Mrs. Manners, too, hearing the horse’s footsteps on the pavement a minute later, and Marjorie’s steps going downstairs, also looked forth and saw him dismounting.  She was a prudent woman, and did not stir a finger till she heard the bell ringing in the court for the dinner to be served.  They would have time, so she thought, to arrange their attitudes.

And, indeed, she was right:  for it was two quiet enough persons who met her as she came down into the hall:  Robin flushed with riding, yet wholly under his own command—­bright-eyed, and resolute and natural (indeed, it seemed to her that he was more of a man than she had thought him).  And her daughter, too, was still and strong; a trifle paler than she should be, yet that was to be expected.  At dinner, of course, nothing could be spoken of but the most ordinary affairs—­in such speaking, that is, as there was.  It was not till they had gone out into the walled garden and sat them down, all three of them, on the long garden-seat beside the rose-beds, that a word was said on these new matters.  There was silence as they walked there, and silence as they sat down.

“Tell her, Robin,” said the maid.

* * * * *