Robin sighed, and turned to the girl, who still sat quiet.  But as he turned she lifted her eyes to him swiftly.

“Good-bye, Mr. Robin,” she said.

He pulled himself up.

“You understand, do you not?” she said.  “You are to be a priest.  You must remember that always.  You are a sort of student already.”

She could see him pale a little; his lips tightened.  For a moment he said nothing; he was taken wholly aback.

“Then I am not to come here again?”

Marjorie stood up.  She showed no sign of the fierce self-control she was using.

“Why, yes,” she said.  “Come as you would come to any Catholic neighbours.  But no more than that....  You are to be a priest.”

* * * * *

The spring air was full of softness and sweetness as they stood there.  On the trees behind them and on the roses in front the budding leaves had burst into delicate green, and the copses on all sides sounded with the twittering of birds.  The whole world, it seemed, was kindling with love and freshness.  Yet these two had to stand here and be cold, one to the other....  He was to be a priest; that must not be forgotten, and they must meet no more on the old footing.  That was gone.  Already he stood among the Levites, at least in intention; and the Lord alone was to be the portion of his inheritance and his Cup.

It was a minute before either of them moved, and during that minute the maid felt her courage ebb from her like an outgoing tide, leaving a desolation behind.  It was all that she could do not to cry out.

But when at last Robin made a movement and she had to look him in the face, what she saw there braced and strengthened her.

“You are right, Mistress Marjorie,” he said both gravely and kindly.  “I will bid you good-day and be getting to my horse.”

He kissed her gently, as the manner was, and went down the path alone.

PART II

CHAPTER I

I

It was with a sudden leap of her heart that Marjorie, looking out of her window at the late autumn landscape, her mind still running on the sheet of paper that lay before her, saw a capped head, and then a horse’s crest, rise over the broken edge of land up which Robin had ridden so often two and three years ago.  Then she saw who was the rider, and laid her pen down again.

* * * * *