“Ah!  Beatrice Atherton?” questioned Mary, who had a clearer view of the situation now.

“Yes—­Beatrice Atherton.  He fears that we shall tell her.  He cannot send Margaret to Overfield or Great Keynes now.”

“And if he turns her out after all?”

Sir James looked at her keenly.

“We must leave the rest to God,” he said.

The village was well awake by the time that they had finished their talk and had had something to eat.  The drama at the convent had leaked out through the boy who served the altar there, and a little group was assembled opposite the windows of the cottage to which the monk had been seen to ride up an hour or two before.  It seemed strange that no priest had been near them, but it was fairly evident that the terror was too great.

As the four came out on to the road, a clerical cap peeped for a moment from the churchyard wall and disappeared again.

They went down towards the convent along the grey road, in the pale autumn morning air.  Mary still seemed to herself to walk in a dream, with her father and brother on either side masquerading in strange character; the familiar atmosphere had been swept from them, the background of association was gone, and they moved now in a new scene with new parts to play that were bringing out powers which she had never suspected in them.  It seemed as if their essential souls had been laid bare by a catastrophe, and that she had never known them before.

For herself, she felt helpless and dazed; her own independence seemed gone, and she was aware that her soul was leaning on those of the two who walked beside her, and who were masculine and capable beyond all her previous knowledge of them.

Behind she heard a murmur of voices and footsteps of three or four villagers who followed to see what would happen.

She had no idea of what her father meant to do; it was incredible that he should leave Margaret in the road with her gown and five shillings; but it was yet more incredible that all his threats should be idle.  Only one thing emerged clearly, that he had thrown a heavier responsibility upon Ralph than the latter had foreseen.  Perhaps the rest must indeed be left to God.  She did not even know what he meant to do now, whether to make one last effort with Ralph, or to leave him to himself; and she had not dared to ask.

They passed straight down together in silence to the convent-gate; and were admitted immediately by the portress whose face was convulsed and swollen.

“They are to go,” she sobbed.

Sir James made a gesture, and passed in to the tiny lodge on the left where the portress usually sat; Chris and Mary followed him in, and Mr. Morris went across to the guest-house.

The bell sounded out overhead for mass as they sat there in the dim morning light, twenty or thirty strokes, and ceased; but there was no movement from the little door of the guest-house across the court.  The portress had disappeared through the second door that led from the tiny room in which they sat, into the precincts of the convent itself.