It was a thin face, sharply pear-shaped, ending in a pointed chin; a tight mouth smiled at the corners; above her narrow eyes and high brows rose a high forehead, surmounted by strands of auburn hair drawn back tightly beneath the little head-dress.  It was a strangely peaked face, very clear-skinned, and resembled in some manner a mask.  But the look of it was as sharp as steel; like a slender rapier, fragile and thin, yet keen enough to run a man through.  The power of it, in a word, was out of all measure with the slightness of the face....  Then the face dropped; and Marjorie watched the back of the head bending this way and that, till the nodding heads that followed hid it from sight.

Marjorie drew a deep breath and turned.  The faces of her friends were as pale and intent as her own.  Only the priest was as easy as ever.

“So that is our Eliza,” he said.

Then he did a strange thing.

He lifted his cap once more with grave seriousness.  “God save her
Grace!” he said.

CHAPTER IV

I

Robin bowed to her very carefully, and stood upright again.

* * * * *

She had seen in an instant how changed he was, in that swift instant in which her eyes had singled him out from the little crowd of men that had come into the room with Anthony at their head.  It was a change which she could scarcely have put into words, unless she had said that it was the conception of the Levite within his soul.  He was dressed soberly and richly, with a sword at his side, in great riding-boots splashed to the knees with mud, with his cloak thrown back; and he carried his great brimmed hat in his hand.  All this was as it might have been in Derby, though, perhaps, his dress was a shade more dignified than that in which she had ever seen him.  But the change was in his face and bearing; he bore himself like a man, and a restrained man; and there was besides that subtle air which her woman’s eyes could see, but which even her woman’s wit could not properly describe.

She made room for him to sit beside her; and then Father Campion’s voice spoke: 

“These are the gentlemen, then,” he said.  “And two more are not yet come.  Gentlemen—­” he bowed.  “And which is Captain Fortescue?”

A big man, distinguished from the rest by a slightly military air, and by a certain vividness of costume and a bristling feather in his hat, bowed back to him.

“We have met once before, Mr.—­Mr. Edmonds,” he said.  “At Valladolid.”

Father Campion smiled.

“Yes, sir; for five or ten minutes; and I was in the same room with your honour once at the Duke of Guise’s....  And now, sir, who are the rest of your company?”