"Well," said Elizabeth, "let us see you at supper to-night; and in the parlours afterwards.—Ah!" she cried, suddenly, "neither of you must say a word as to how your friend was released. It must remain the act of the Council. My name must not appear; Walsingham will see to that, and you must see to it too."

They both promised sincerely.

"Well, then, lad," said Elizabeth, and stretched out her hand; and Mary rose and stood by her. Anthony came up and knelt on the cushion and received the slender scented ringed hand on his own, and kissed it ardently in his gratitude. As he released it, it cuffed him gently on the cheek.

"There, there!" said Elizabeth, "Minnie has taught you too much, it seems."

Anthony backed out of the presence, smiling; and his last glimpse was once more of the great scarlet-clad figure with the slender waist, and the priceless pearls, and the haze of muslin behind that crowned auburn head, and the pale oval face smiling at him with narrow eyes—and all in a glory of sunshine.

* * * *

He did not see Mary Corbet again until evening as she was with the Queen all the afternoon. Anthony would have wished to return to Lambeth; but it was impossible, after the command to remain to supper; so he wandered down along the river bank, rejoicing in the success of his petition; and wondering whether James had heard of his release yet.

Of course it was just a fly in the ointment that his own agency in the matter could never be known. It would have been at least some sort of compensation for his innocent share in the whole matter of the arrest. However, he was too happy to feel the sting of it. He felt, of course, greatly drawn to the Queen for her ready clemency; and yet there was something repellent about her too in spite of it. He felt in his heart that it was just a caprice, like her blows and caresses; and then the assumption of youth sat very ill upon this lean middle-aged woman. He would have preferred less lute-playing and sprightly innuendo, and more tenderness and gravity.

* * * *

Mary had arranged that a proper Court-suit should be at his disposal for supper, and a room to himself; so after he had returned at sunset, he changed his clothes. The white silk suit with the high hosen, the embroidered doublet with great puffed and slashed sleeves, the short green-lined cloak, the white cap and feather, and the slender sword with the jewelled hilt, all became him very well; and he found too that Mary had provided him with two great emerald brooches of her own, that he pinned on, one at the fastening of the crisp ruff and the other on his cap.

He went to the private chapel for the evening prayer at half-past six; which was read by one of the chaplains; but there were very few persons present, and none of any distinction. Religion, except as a department of politics, was no integral part of Court life. The Queen only occasionally attended evening-prayer on week days; and just now she was too busy with the affair of the Duke of Alencon to spend unnecessary time in that manner.

When the evening prayer was over he followed the little company into the long gallery that led towards the hall, through which the Queen's procession would pass to supper; and there he attached himself to a group of gentlemen, some of whom he had met at Lambeth. While they were talking, the clang of trumpets suddenly broke out from the direction of the Queen's apartments; and all threw themselves on their knees and remained there. The doors were flung open by servants stationed behind them; and the wands advanced leading the procession; then came the trumpeters blowing mightily, with a drum or two beating the step; and then in endless profusion, servants and guards; gentlemen pensioners magnificently habited, for they were continually about the Queen's person; and at last, after an official or two bearing swords, came the Queen and Alencon together; she in a superb purple toilet with brocaded underskirt and high-heeled twinkling shoes, and breathing out essences as she swept by smiling; and he, a pathetic little brown man, pockmarked, with an ill-shapen nose and a head too large for his undersized body, in a rich velvet suit sparkling all over with diamonds.

As they passed Anthony he heard the Duke making some French compliment in his croaking harsh voice. Behind came the crowd of ladies, nodding, chattering, rustling; and Anthony had a swift glance of pleasure from Mistress Corbet as she went by, talking at the top of her voice.

The company followed on to the hall, behind the distant trumpets, and Anthony found himself still with his friends somewhere at the lower end—away from the Queen's table, who sat with Alencon at her side on a dais, with the great folks about her. All through supper the most astonishing noise went on. Everyone was talking loudly; the servants ran to and fro over the paved floor; there was the loud clatter over the plates of four hundred persons; and, to crown all, a band in the musicians' gallery overhead made brazen music all supper-time. Anthony had enough entertainment himself in looking about the great banqueting-hall, so magnificently adorned with tapestries and armour and antlers from the park; and above all by the blaze of gold and silver plate both on the tables and on the sideboards; and by watching the army of liveried servants running to and fro incessantly; and the glowing colours of the dresses of the guests.

Supper was over at last; and a Latin grace was exquisitely sung in four parts by boys and men stationed in the musicians' gallery; and then the Queen's procession went out with the same ceremony as that with which it had entered. Anthony followed behind, as he had been bidden by the Queen to the private parlours afterwards; but he presently found his way barred by a page at the foot of the stairs leading to the Queen's apartments.

It was in vain that he pleaded his invitation; it was useless, as the young gentleman had not been informed of it. Anthony asked if he might see Mistress Corbet. No, that too was impossible; she was gone upstairs with the Queen's Grace and might not be disturbed. Anthony, in despair, not however unmixed with relief at escaping a further ordeal, was about to turn away, leaving the officious young gentleman swaggering on the stairs like a peacock, when down came Mistress Corbet herself, sailing down in her splendour, to see what was become of the gentleman of the Archbishop's house.

"Why, here you are!" she cried from the landing as she came down, "and why have you not obeyed the Queen's command?"

"This young gentleman," said Anthony, indicating the astonished page, "would not let me proceed."

"It is unusual, Mistress Corbet," said the boy, "for her Grace's guests to come without my having received instructions, unless they are great folk."

Mistress Corbet came down the last six steps like a stooping hawk, her wings bulged behind her; and she caught the boy one clean light cuff on the side of the head.

"You imp!" she said, "daring to doubt the word of this gentleman. And the Queen's Grace's own special guest!"

The boy tried still to stand on his dignity and bar the way, but it was difficult to be dignified with a ringing head and a scarlet ear.

"Stand aside," said Mary, stamping her little buckled foot, "this instant; unless you would be dragged by your red ear before the Queen's Grace. Come, Master Anthony."

So the two went upstairs together, and the lad called up after them bitterly:

"I beg your pardon, Mistress; I did not recognise he was your gallant."

"You shall pay for that," hissed Mary over the banisters.

They went along a passage or two, and the sound of a voice singing to a virginal began to ring nearer as they went, followed by a burst of applause.

"Lady Leicester," whispered Mary; and then she opened the door and they went in.

There were three rooms opening on one another with wide entrances, so that really one long room was the result. They were all three fairly full; that into which they entered, the first in the row, was occupied by some gentlemen-pensioners and ladies talking and laughing; some playing shove-groat, and some of them still applauding the song that had just ended. The middle room was much the same; and the third, which was a step higher than the others, was that in which was the Queen, with Lady Leicester and a few more. Lady Leicester had just finished a song, and was laying her virginal down. There was a great fire burning in the middle room, with seats about it, and here Mary Corbet brought Anthony. Those near him eyed him a little; but his companion was sufficient warrant of his respectability; and they soon got into talk, which was suddenly interrupted by the Queen's voice from the next room.

"Minnie, Minnie, if you can spare a moment from your lad, come and help us at a dance."

The Queen was plainly in high good-humour; and Mary got up and went into the Queen's room. Those round the fire stood up and pushed the seats back, and the games ceased in the third room; as her Grace needed spectators and applause.

Then there arose the rippling of lutes from the ladies in the next room, in slow swaying measure, with the gentle tap of a drum now and again; and the pavane began—a stately dignified dance; and among all the ladies moved the great Queen herself, swaying and bending with much grace and dignity. It was the strangest thing for Anthony to find himself here, a raven among all these peacocks, and birds of paradise; and he wondered at himself and at the strange humour of Providence, as he watched the shimmer of the dresses and the sparkle of the shoes and jewels, and the soft clouds of muslin and lace that shivered and rustled as the ladies stepped; the firelight shone through the wide doorway on this glowing movement, and groups of candles in sconces within the room increased and steadied the soft intensity of the light. The soft tingling instruments, with the slow tap-tap marking the measure like a step, seemed a translation into chord and melody of this stately tender exercise. And so this glorious flower-bed, loaded too with a wealth of essences in the dresses and the sweet-washed gloves, swayed under the wind of the music, bending and rising together in slow waves and ripples. Then it ceased; and the silence was broken by a quick storm of applause; while the dancers waited for the lutes. Then all the instruments broke out together in quick triple time; the stringed instruments supplying a hasty throbbing accompaniment, while the shrill flutes began to whistle and the drums to gallop;—there was yet a pause in the dance, till the Queen made the first movement;—and then the whole whirled off on the wings of a coranto.

It was bewildering to Anthony, who had never even dreamed of such a dance before. He watched first the lower line of the shoes; and the whole floor, in reality above, and in the mirror of the polished boards below, seemed scintillating in lines of diamond light; the heavy underskirts of brocade, puffed satin, and cloth of gold, with glimpses of foamy lace beneath, whirled and tossed above these flashing vibrations. Then he looked at the higher strata, and there was a tossing sea of faces and white throats, borne up as it seemed—now revealed, now hidden—on clouds of undulating muslin and lace, with sparkles of precious stones set in ruff and wings and on high piled hair.

He watched, fascinated, the faces as they appeared and vanished; there was every imaginable expression; the serious looks of one who took dancing as a solemn task, and marked her position and considered her steps; the wild gaiety of another, all white teeth and dimples and eyes, intoxicated by movement and music and colour, as men are by wine, and guided and sustained by the furious genius of the dance, rather than by intention of any kind. There was the courtly self-restraint of one tall beauty, who danced as a pleasant duty and loved it, but never lost control of her own bending, slender grace; ah! and there was the oval face crowned with auburn hair and pearls, the lower lip drawn up under the black teeth with an effort, till it appeared to snarl, and the ropes of pearls leaping wildly on her lean purple stomacher. And over all the grave oak walls and the bright sconces and the taper flames blown about by the eddying gusts from the whirlpool beneath.

As Anthony went down the square winding staircase, an hour later when the evening was over, and the keen winter air poured up to meet him, his brain was throbbing with the madness of dance and music and whirling colour. Here, it seemed to him, lay the secret of life. For a few minutes his old day-dreams came back but in more intoxicating dress. The figure of Mary Corbet in her rose-coloured silk and her clouds of black hair, and her jewels and her laughing eyes and scarlet mouth, and her violet fragrance and her fire—this dominated the boy. As he walked towards the stables across the starlit court, she seemed to move before him, to hold out her hands to him, to call him her own dear lad; to invite him out of the drab-coloured life that lay on all sides, behind and before, up into a mystic region of jewelled romance, where she and he would live and be one in the endless music of rippling strings and shrill flutes and the maddening tap of a little hidden drum.

But the familiar touch of his own sober suit and the creaking saddle as he rode home to Lambeth, and the icy wind that sang in the river sedges, and the wholesome smell of the horse and the touch of the coarse hair at the shoulder, talked and breathed the old Puritan common sense back to him again. That warm-painted, melodious world he had left was gaudy nonsense; and dancing was not the same as living; and Mary Corbet was not just a rainbow on the foam that would die when the sun went in; but both she and he together were human souls, redeemed by the death of the Saviour, with His work to do and no time or energy for folly; and James Maxwell in the Tower—(thank God, however, not for long!)—James Maxwell with his wrenched joints and forehead and lips wet with agony, was in the right; and that lean bitter furious woman in the purple and pearls, who supped to the blare of trumpets, and danced to the ripple of lutes, wholly and utterly and eternally in the wrong.



CHAPTER XI

A STATION OF THE CROSS

Philosophers tell us that the value of existence lies not in the objects perceived, but in the powers of perception. The tragedy of a child over a broken doll is not less poignant than the anguish of a worshipper over a broken idol, or of a king over a ruined realm. Thus the conflict of Isabel during those past autumn and winter months was no less august than the pain of the priest on the rack, or the struggle of his innocent betrayer to rescue him, or the misery of Lady Maxwell over the sorrows that came to her in such different ways through her two sons.

Isabel's soul was tender above most souls; and the powers of feeling pain and of sustaining it were also respectively both acute and strong. The sense of pressure, or rather of disruption, became intolerable. She was indeed a soul on the rack; if she had been less conscientious she would have silenced the voice of Divine Love that seemed to call to her from the Catholic Church; if she had been less natural and feminine she would have trampled out of her soul the appeal of the human love of Hubert. As it was, she was wrenched both ways. Now the cords at one end or the other would relax a little, and the corresponding relief was almost a shock; but when she tried to stir and taste the freedom of decision that now seemed in her reach, they would tighten again with a snap; and she would find herself back on the torture. To herself she seemed powerless; it appeared to her, when she reflected on it consciously, that it was merely a question as to which part of her soul would tear first, as to which ultimately retained her. She began to be terrified at solitude; the thought of the coming night, with its long hours of questioning and torment until the dawn, haunted her during the day. She would read in her room, or remain at her prayers, in the hopes of distracting herself from the struggle, until sleep seemed the supreme necessity: then, when she lay down, sleep would flap its wings in mockery and flit away, leaving her wide-awake staring at the darkness of the room or of her own eyelids, until the windows began to glimmer and the cocks to crow from farm buildings.

In spite of her first resolve to fight the battle alone, she soon found herself obliged to tell Mistress Margaret all that was possible; but she felt that to express her sheer need of Hubert, as she thought it, was beyond her altogether. How could a nun understand?

"My darling," said the old lady, "it would not be Calvary without the darkness; and you cannot have Christ without Calvary. Remember that the Light of the World makes darkness His secret place; and so you see that if you were able to feel that any human soul really understood, it would mean that the darkness was over. I have suffered that Night twice myself; the third time I think, will be in the valley of death."

Isabel only half understood her; but it was something to know that others had tasted the cup too; and that what was so bitter was not necessarily poisonous.

At another time as the two were walking together under the pines one evening, and the girl had again tried to show to the nun the burning desolation of her soul, Mistress Margaret had suddenly turned.

"Listen, dear child," she said, "I will tell you a secret. Over there," and she pointed out to where the sunset glowed behind the tree trunks and the slope beyond, "over there, in West Grinsted, rests our dear Lord in the blessed sacrament. His Body lies lonely, neglected and forgotten by all but half a dozen souls; while twenty years ago all England reverenced It. Behold and see if there be any sorrow—" and then the nun stopped, as she saw Isabel's amazed eyes staring at her.

But it haunted the girl and comforted her now and then. Yet in the fierceness of her pain she asked herself again and again, was it true—was it true? Was she sacrificing her life for a dream, a fairy-story? or was it true that there the body, that had hung on the cross fifteen hundred years ago, now rested alone, hidden in a silver pyx, within locked doors for fear of the Jews.—Oh! dear Lord, was it true?

Hubert had kept his word, and left the place almost immediately after his last interview; and was to return at Easter for his final answer. Christmas had come and gone; and it seemed to her as if even the tenderest mysteries of the Christian Religion had no touch with her now. She walked once more in the realm of grace, as in the realm of nature, an exile from its spirit. All her sensitive powers seemed so absorbed in interior pain that there was nothing in her to respond to or appreciate the most keen external impressions. As she awoke and looked up on Christmas morning early, and saw the frosted panes and the snow lying like wool on the cross-bars, and heard the Christmas bells peal out in the listening air; as she came downstairs and the old pleasant acrid smell of the evergreens met her, and she saw the red berries over each picture, and the red heart of the wood-fire; nay, as she knelt at the chancel rails, and tried in her heart to adore the rosy Child in the manger, and received the sacred symbols of His Flesh and Blood, and entreated Him to remember His loving-kindness that brought Him down from heaven—yet the whole was far less real, less intimate to her, than the sound of Hubert's voice as he had said good-bye two months ago; less real than one of those darting pangs of thought that fell on her heart all day like a shower of arrows.

And then, when the sensitive strings of her soul were stretched to anguish, a hand dashed across them, striking a wailing discord, and they did not break. The news of Anthony's treachery, and still more his silence, performed the incredible, and doubled her pain without breaking her heart.

On the Tuesday morning early Lady Maxwell had sent her note by a courier; bidding him return at once with the answer. The evening had come, and he had not appeared. The night passed and the morning came; and it was not till noon that the man at last arrived, saying he had seen Mr. Norris on the previous evening, and that he had read the note through there and then, and had said there was no answer. Surely there could be but one explanation of that—that no answer was possible.

It could not be said that Isabel actively considered the question and chose to doubt Anthony rather than to trust him. She was so nearly passive now, with the struggle she had gone through, that this blow came on her with the overwhelming effect of an hypnotic suggestion. Her will did not really accept it, any more than her intellect really weighed it; but she succumbed to it; and did not even write again, nor question the man further. Had she done this she might perhaps have found out the truth, that the man, a stupid rustic with enough shrewdness to lie, but not enough to lie cleverly, had had his foolish head turned by the buzz of London town and the splendour of Lambeth stables and the friendliness of the grooms there, and had got heavily drunk on leaving Anthony; that the answer which he had put into his hat had very naturally fallen out and been lost; and that when at last he returned to the country already eight hours after his time, and found the note was missing, he had stalwartly lied, hoping that the note was unimportant and that things would adjust themselves or be forgotten before a day of reckoning should arrive.

And so Isabel's power of resistance collapsed under this last blow; and her soul lay still at last, almost too much tormented to feel. Her last hope was gone; Anthony had betrayed his friend.

The week crept by, and Saturday came. She went out soon after dinner to see a sick body or two in an outlying hamlet; for she had never forgotten Mrs. Dent's charge, and, with the present minister's approval, still visited the sick one or two days a week at least. Then towards sunset she came homewards over some high ground on the outskirts of Ashdown Forest. The snow that had fallen before Christmas, had melted a week or two ago; and the frost had broken up; it was a heavy leaden evening, with an angry glow shining, as through chinks of a wall, from the west towards which she was going. The village lay before her in the gloom; and lights were beginning to glimmer here and there. She contrasted in a lifeless way that pleasant group of warm houses with their suggestions of love and homeliness with her own desolate self. She passed up through the village towards the Hall, whither she was going to report on the invalids to Lady Maxwell; and in the appearance of the houses on either side she thought there was an unaccustomed air. Several doors stood wide open with the brightness shining out into the twilight, as if the inhabitants had suddenly deserted their homes. Others were still dark and cold, although the evening was drawing on. There was not a moving creature to be seen. She passed up, wondering a little, through the gatehouse, and turned into the gravel sweep; and there stopped short at the sight of a great crowd of men and women and children, assembled in dead silence. Some one was standing at the entrance-steps, with his head bent as if he were talking to those nearest him in a low voice.

As she came up there ran a whisper of her name; the people drew back to let her through, and she passed, sick with suspense, to the man on the steps, whom she now recognised as Mr. James' body-servant. His face looked odd and drawn, she thought.

"What is it?" she asked in a sharp whisper.

"Mr. James is here, madam; he is with Lady Maxwell in the cloister-wing. Will you please to go up?"

"Mr. James! It is no news about Mr. Anthony—or—or Mr. Hubert!"

"No, madam." The man hesitated. "Mr. James has been racked, madam."

The man's voice broke in a great sob as he ended.

"Ah!"

She reeled against the post; a man behind caught her and steadied her; and there was a quick breath of pity from the crowd.

"Ah, poor thing!" said a woman's voice behind her.

"I beg your pardon, madam," said the servant. "I should not have——"

"And—and he is upstairs?"

"He and my lady are together, madam."

She looked at him a moment, dazed with the horror of it; and then going past him, pushed open the door and went through into the inner hall. Here again she stopped suddenly: it was half full of people, silent and expectant—the men, the grooms, the maid-servants, and even two or three farm-men. She heard the rustle of her name from the white faces that looked at her from the gloom; but none moved; and she crossed the hall alone, and turned down the lower corridor that led to the cloister-wing.

At the foot of the staircase she stopped again; her heart drummed in her ears, as she listened intently with parted lips. There was a profound silence; the lamp on the stairs had not been lighted, and the terrace window only let in a pale glimmer.

It was horrible to her! this secret presence of incarnate pain that brooded somewhere in the house, this silence of living anguish, worse than death a thousand times!

Where was he? What would it look like? Even a scream somewhere would have relieved her, and snapped the tension of the listening stillness that lay on her like a shocking nightmare. This lobby with its well-known doors—the banister on which her fingers rested—the well of the staircase up which she stared with dilated eyes—all was familiar; and yet, somewhere in the shadows overhead lurked this formidable Presence of pain, mute, anguished, terrifying....

She longed to run back, to shriek for help; but she dared not: and stood panting. She went up a couple of steps—stopped, listened to the sick thumping of her heart—took another step and stopped again; and so, listening, peering, hesitating, came to the head of the stairs.

Ah! there was the door, with a line of light beneath it. It was there that the horror dwelt. She stared at the thin bright line; waited and listened again for even a moan or a sigh from within, but none came.

Then with a great effort she stepped forward and tapped.

There was no answer; but as she listened she heard from within the gentle tinkle of some liquid running into a bowl, rhythmically, and with pauses. Then again she tapped, nervously and rapidly, and there was a murmur from the room; she opened the door softly, pushed it, and took a step into the room, half closing it behind her.

There were two candles burning on a table in the middle of the room, and on the near side of it was a group of three persons....

Isabel had seen in one of Mistress Margaret's prayer-books an engraving of an old Flemish Pieta—a group of the Blessed Mother holding in her arms the body of her Crucified Son, with the Magdalen on one side, supporting one of the dead Saviour's hands. Isabel now caught her breath in a sudden gasp; for here was the scene reproduced before her.

Lady Maxwell was on a low seat bending forwards; the white cap and ruff seemed like a veil thrown all about her head and beneath her chin; she was holding in her arms the body of her son, who seemed to have fainted as he sat beside her; his head had fallen back against her breast, and his pointed beard and dark hair and her black dress beyond emphasised the deathly whiteness of his face on which the candlelight fell; his mouth was open, like a dead man's. Mistress Margaret was kneeling by his left hand, holding it over a basin and delicately sponging it; and the whole air was fragrant and aromatic with some ointment in the water; a long bandage or two lay on the ground beside the basin. The evening light over the opposite roofs through the window beyond mingled with the light of the tapers, throwing a strange radiance over the group. The table on which the tapers stood looked to Isabel like a stripped altar.

She stood by the door, her lips parted, motionless; looking with great eyes from face to face. It was as if the door had given access to another world where the passion of Christ was being re-enacted.

Then she sank on her knees, still watching. There was no sound but the faint ripple of the water into the basin and the quiet breathing of the three. Lady Maxwell now and then lifted a handkerchief in silence and passed it across her son's face. Isabel, still staring with great wide eyes, began to sigh gently to herself.

"Anthony, Anthony, Anthony!" she whispered.

"Oh, no, no, no!" she whispered again under her breath. "No, Anthony! you could not, you could not!"

Then from the man there came one or two long sighs, ending in a moan that quavered into silence; he stirred slightly in his mother's arms; and then in a piteous high voice came the words "Jesu ... Jesu ... esto mihi ... Jesus."

Consciousness was coming back. He fancied himself still on the rack.

Lady Maxwell said nothing, but gathered him a little closer, and bent her face lower over him.

Then again came a long sobbing indrawn breath; James struggled for a moment; then opened his eyes and saw his mother's face.

Mistress Margaret had finished with the water; and was now swiftly manipulating a long strip of white linen. Isabel still sunk on her knees watched the bandage winding in and out round his wrist, and between his thumb and forefinger.

Then he turned his head sharply towards her with a gasp as if in pain; and his eyes fell on Isabel.

"Mistress Isabel," he said; and his voice was broken and untuneful.

Mistress Margaret turned; and smiled at her; and at the sight the intolerable compression on the girl's heart relaxed.

"Come, child," she said, "come and help me with his hand. No, no, lie still," she added; for James was making a movement as if to rise.

James smiled at her as she came forward; and she saw that his face had a strange look as if after a long illness.

"You see, Mistress Isabel," he said, in the same cracked voice, and with an infinitely pathetic courtesy, "I may not rise."

Isabel's eyes filled with sudden tears, his attempt at his old manner was more touching than all else; and she came and knelt beside the old nun.

"Hold the fingers," she said; and the familiar old voice brought the girl a stage nearer her normal consciousness again.

Isabel took the priest's fingers and saw that they were limp and swollen. The sleeve fell back a little as Mistress Margaret manipulated the bandage; and the girl saw that the forearm looked shapeless and discoloured.

She glanced up in swift terror at his face, but he was looking at his mother, whose eyes were bent on his; Isabel looked quickly down again.

"There," said Mistress Margaret, tying the last knot, "it is done."

Mr. James looked his thanks over his shoulder at her, as she nodded and smiled before turning to leave the room.

Isabel sat slowly down and watched them.

"This is but a flying visit, Mistress Isabel," said James. "I must leave to-morrow again."

He had sat up now, and settled himself in his seat, though his mother's arm was still round him. The voice and the pitiful attempt were terrible to Isabel. Slowly the consciousness was filtering into her mind of what all this implied; what it must have been that had turned this tall self-contained man into this weak creature who lay in his mother's arms, and fainted at a touch and sobbed. She could say nothing; but could only look, and breathe, and look.

Then it suddenly came to her mind that Lady Maxwell had not spoken a word. She looked at her; that old wrinkled face with its white crown of hair and lace had a new and tremendous dignity. There was no anxiety in it; scarcely even grief; but only a still and awful anguish, towering above ordinary griefs like a mountain above the world; and there was the supreme peace too that can only accompany a supreme emotion—she seemed conscious of nothing but her son.

Isabel could not answer James; and he seemed not to expect it; he had turned back to his mother again, and they were looking at one another. Then in a moment Mistress Margaret came back with a glass that she put to James' lips; and he drank it without a word. She stood looking at the group an instant or two, and then turned to Isabel.

"Come downstairs with me, my darling; there is nothing more that we can do."

They went out of the room together; the mother and son had not stirred again; and Mistress Margaret slipped her arm quickly round the girl's waist, as they went downstairs.

* * * *

In the cloister beneath was a pleasant little oak parlour looking out on to the garden and the long south side of the house. Mistress Margaret took the little hand-lamp that burned in the cloister itself as they passed along silently together, and guided the girl through into the parlour on the left-hand side. There was a tall chair standing before the hearth, and as Mistress Margaret sat down, drawing the girl with her, Isabel sank down on the footstool at her feet, and hid her face on the old nun's knees.

There was silence for a minute or two. Mistress Margaret set down the lamp on the table beside her, and passed her hands caressingly over the girl's hands and hair; but said nothing, until Isabel's whole body heaved up convulsively once or twice, before she burst into a torrent of weeping.

"My darling," said the old lady in a quiet steady voice, "we should thank God instead of grieving. To think that this house should have given two confessors to the Church, father and son! Yes, yes, dear child, I know what you are thinking of, the two dear lads we both love; well, well, we do not know, we must trust them both to God. It may not be true of Anthony; and even if it be true—well, he must have thought he was serving his Queen. And for Hubert——"

Isabel lifted her face and looked with a dreadful questioning stare.

"Dear child," said the nun, "do not look like that. Nothing is so bad as not trusting God."

"Anthony, Anthony!"... whispered the girl.

"James told us the same story as the gentleman on Sunday," went on the nun. "But he said no hard word, and he does not condemn. I know his heart. He does not know why he is released, nor by whose order: but an order came to let him go, and his papers with it: and he must be out of England by Monday morning: so he leaves here to-morrow in the litter in which he came. He is to say mass to-morrow, if he is able."

"Mass? Here?" said the girl, in the same sharp whisper; and her sobbing ceased abruptly.

"Yes, dear; if he is able to stand and use his hands enough. They have settled it upstairs."

Isabel continued to look up in her face wildly.

"Ah!" said the old nun again. "You must not look like that. Remember that he thinks those wounds the most precious things in the world—yes—and his mother too!"

"I must be at mass," said Isabel; "God means it."

"Now, now," said Mistress Margaret soothingly, "you do not know what you are saying."

"I mean it," said Isabel, with sharp emphasis; "God means it."

Mistress Margaret took the girl's face between her hands, and looked steadily down into her wet eyes. Isabel returned the look as steadily.

"Yes, yes," she said, "as God sees us."

Then she broke into talk, at first broken and incoherent in language, but definite and orderly in ideas, and in her interpretations of these last months.

Kneeling beside her with her hands clasped on the nun's knee, Isabel told her all her struggles; disentangling at last in a way that she had never been able to do before, all the complicated strands of self-will and guidance and blindness that had so knotted and twisted themselves into her life. The nun was amazed at the spiritual instinct of this Puritan child, who ranged her motives so unerringly; dismissing this as of self, marking this as of God's inspiration, accepting this and rejecting that element of the circumstances of her life; steering confidently between the shoals of scrupulous judgment and conscience on the one side, and the hidden rocks of presumption and despair on the other—these very dangers that had baffled and perplexed her so long—and tracing out through them all the clear deep safe channel of God's intention, who had allowed her to emerge at last from the tortuous and baffling intricacies of character and circumstance into the wide open sea of His own sovereign Will.

It seemed to the nun, as Isabel talked, as if it needed just a final touch of supreme tragedy to loosen and resolve all the complications; and that this had been supplied by the vision upstairs. There she had seen a triumphant trophy of another's sorrow and conquest. There was hardly an element in her own troubles that was not present in that human Pieta upstairs—treachery—loneliness—sympathy—bereavement—and above all the supreme sacrificial act of human love subordinated to divine—human love, purified and transfigured and rendered invincible and immortal by the very immolation of it at the feet of God—all this that the son and mother in their welcome of pain had accomplished in the crucifixion of one and the heart-piercing of the other—this was light opened to the perplexed, tormented soul of the girl—a radiance poured out of the darkness of their sorrow and made her way plain before her face.

"My Isabel," said the old nun, when the girl had finished and was hiding her face again, "this is of God. Glory to His Name! I must ask James' leave; and then you must sleep here to-night, for the mass to-morrow."

* * * *

The chapel at Maxwell Hall was in the cloister wing; but a stranger visiting the house would never have suspected it. Opening out of Lady Maxwell's new sitting-room was a little lobby or landing, about four yards square, lighted from above; at the further end of it was the door into her bedroom. This lobby was scarcely more than a broad passage; and would attract no attention from any passing through it. The only piece of furniture in it was a great tall old chest as high as a table, that stood against the inner wall beyond which was the long gallery that looked down upon the cloister garden. The lobby appeared to be practically as broad as the two rooms on either side of it; but this was effected by the outer wall being made to bulge a little; and the inner wall being thinner than inside the two living-rooms. The deception was further increased by the two living-rooms being first wainscoted and then hung with thick tapestry; while the lobby was bare. A curious person who should look in the chest would find there only an old dress and a few pieces of stuff. This lobby, however, was the chapel; and through the chest was the entrance to one of the priest's hiding holes, where also the altar-stone and the ornaments and the vestments were kept. The bottom of the chest was in reality hinged in such a way that it would fall, on the proper pressure being applied in two places at once, sufficiently to allow the side of the chest against the wall to be pushed aside, which in turn gave entrance to a little space some two yards long by a yard wide; and here were kept all the necessaries for divine worship; with room besides for a couple of men at least to be hidden away. There was also a way from this hole on to the roof, but it was a difficult and dangerous way; and was only to be used in case of extreme necessity.

It was in this lobby that Isabel found herself the next morning kneeling and waiting for mass. She had been awakened by Mistress Margaret shortly before four o'clock and told in a whisper to dress herself in the dark; for it was impossible under the circumstances to tell whether the house was not watched; and a light seen from outside might conceivably cause trouble and disturbance. So she had dressed herself and come down from her room along the passages, so familiar during the day, so sombre and suggestive now in the black morning with but one shaded light placed at the angles. Other figures were stealing along too; but she could not tell who they were in the gloom. Then she had come through the little sitting-room where the scene of last night had taken place and into the lobby beyond.

But the whole place was transformed.

Over the old chest now hung a picture, that usually was in Lady Maxwell's room, of the Blessed Mother and her holy Child, in a great carved frame of some black wood. The chest had become an altar: Isabel could see the slight elevation in the middle of the long white linen cloth where the altar-stone lay, and upon that again, at the left corner, a pile of linen and silk. Upon the altar at the back stood two slender silver candlesticks with burning tapers in them; and a silver crucifix between them. The carved wooden panels, representing the sacrifice of Isaac on the one half and the offering of Melchisedech on the other, served instead of an embroidered altar-frontal. Against the side wall stood a little white-covered folding table with the cruets and other necessaries upon it.

There were two or three benches across the rest of the lobby; and at these were kneeling a dozen or more persons, motionless, their faces downcast. There was a little wind such as blows before the dawn moaning gently outside; and within was a slight draught that made the taper flames lean over now and then.

Isabel took her place beside Mistress Margaret at the front bench; and as she knelt forward she noticed a space left beyond her for Lady Maxwell. A moment later there came slow and painful steps through the sitting-room, and Lady Maxwell came in very slowly with her son leaning on her arm and on a stick. There was a silence so profound that it seemed to Isabel as if all had stopped breathing. She could only hear the slow plunging pulse of her own heart.

James took his mother across the altar to her place, and left her there, bowing to her; and then went up to the altar to vest. As he reached it and paused, a servant slipped out and received the stick from him. The priest made the sign of the cross, and took up the amice from the vestments that lay folded on the altar. He was already in his cassock.

Isabel watched each movement with a deep agonising interest; he was so frail and broken, so bent in his figure, so slow and feeble in his movements. He made an attempt to raise the amice but could not, and turned slightly; and the man from behind stepped up again and lifted it for him. Then he helped him with each of the vestments, lifted the alb over his head and tenderly drew the bandaged hands through the sleeves; knit the girdle round him; gave him the stole to kiss and then placed it over his neck and crossed the ends beneath the girdle and adjusted the amice; then he placed the maniple on his left arm, but so tenderly! and lastly, lifted the great red chasuble and dropped it over his head and straightened it—and there stood the priest as he had stood last Sunday, in crimson vestments again; but bowed and thin-faced now.

Then he began the preparation with the servant who knelt beside him in his ordinary livery, as server; and Isabel heard the murmur of the Latin words for the first time. Then he stepped up to the altar, bent slowly and kissed it and the mass began.

Isabel had a missal, lent to her by Mistress Margaret; but she hardly looked at it; so intent was she on that crimson figure and his strange movements and his low broken voice. It was unlike anything that she had ever imagined worship to be. Public worship to her had meant hitherto one of two things—either sitting under a minister and having the word applied to her soul in the sacrament of the pulpit; or else the saying of prayers by the minister aloud and distinctly and with expression, so that the intellect could follow the words, and assent with a hearty Amen. The minister was a minister to man of the Word of God, an interpreter of His gospel to man.

But here was a worship unlike all this in almost every detail. The priest was addressing God, not man; therefore he did so in a low voice, and in a tongue as Campion had said on the scaffold "that they both understood." It was comparatively unimportant whether man followed it word for word, for (and here the second radical difference lay) the point of the worship for the people lay, not in an intellectual apprehension of the words, but in a voluntary assent to and participation in the supreme act to which the words were indeed necessary but subordinate. It was the thing that was done; not the words that were said, that was mighty with God. Here, as these Catholics round Isabel at any rate understood it, and as she too began to perceive it too, though dimly and obscurely, was the sublime mystery of the Cross presented to God. As He looked down well pleased into the silence and darkness of Calvary, and saw there the act accomplished by which the world was redeemed, so here (this handful of disciples believed), He looked down into the silence and twilight of this little lobby, and saw that same mystery accomplished at the hands of one who in virtue of his participation in the priesthood of the Son of God was empowered to pronounce these heart-shaking words by which the Body that hung on Calvary, and the Blood that dripped from it there, were again spread before His eyes, under the forms of bread and wine.

Much of this faith of course was still dark to Isabel; but yet she understood enough; and when the murmur of the priest died to a throbbing silence, and the worshippers sank in yet more profound adoration, and then with terrible effort and a quick gasp or two of pain, those wrenched bandaged hands rose trembling in the air with Something that glimmered white between them; the Puritan girl too drooped her head, and lifted up her heart, and entreated the Most High and most Merciful to look down on the Mystery of Redemption accomplished on earth; and for the sake of the Well-Beloved to send down His Grace on the Catholic Church; to strengthen and save the living; to give rest and peace to the dead; and especially to remember her dear brother Anthony, and Hubert whom she loved; and Mistress Margaret and Lady Maxwell, and this faithful household: and the poor battered man before her, who, not only as a priest was made like to the Eternal Priest, but as a victim too had hung upon a prostrate cross, fastened by hands and feet; thus bearing on his body for all to see the marks of the Lord Jesus.

* * * *

Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret both rose and stepped forward after the Priest's Communion, and received from those wounded hands the Broken Body of the Lord.

And then the mass was presently over; and the server stepped forward again to assist the priest to unvest, himself lifting each vestment off, for Father Maxwell was terribly exhausted by now, and laying it on the altar. Then he helped him to a little footstool in front of him, for him to kneel and make his thanksgiving. Isabel looked with an odd wonder at the server; he was the man that she knew so well, who opened the door for her, and waited at table; but now a strange dignity rested on him as he moved confidently and reverently about the awful altar, and touched the vestments that even to her Puritan eyes shone with new sanctity. It startled her to think of the hidden Catholic life of this house—of these servants who loved and were familiar with mysteries that she had been taught to dread and distrust, but before which she too now was to bow her being in faith and adoration.

After a minute or two, Mistress Margaret touched Isabel on the arm and beckoned to her to come up to the altar, which she began immediately to strip of its ornaments and cloth, having first lit another candle on one of the benches. Isabel helped her in this with a trembling dread, as all the others except Lady Maxwell and her son were now gone out silently; and presently the picture was down, and leaning against the wall; the ornaments and sacred vessels packed away in their box, with the vestments and linen in another. Then together they lifted off the heavy altar stone. Mistress Margaret next laid back the lid of the chest; and put her hands within, and presently Isabel saw the back of the chest fall back, apparently into the wall. Mistress Margaret then beckoned to Isabel to climb into the chest and go through; she did so without much difficulty, and found herself in the little room behind. There was a stool or two and some shelves against the wall, with a plate or two upon them and one or two tools. She received the boxes handed through, and followed Mistress Margaret's instructions as to where to place them; and when all was done, she slipped back again through the chest into the lobby.

The priest and his mother were still in their places, motionless. Mistress Margaret closed the chest inside and out, beckoned Isabel into the sitting-room and closed the door behind them. Then she threw her arms round the girl and kissed her again and again.

"My own darling," said the nun, with tears in her eyes. "God bless you—your first mass. Oh! I have prayed for this. And you know all our secrets now. Now go to your room, and to bed again. It is only a little after five. You shall see him—James—before he goes. God bless you, my dear!"

She watched Isabel down the passage; and then turned back again to where the other two were still kneeling, to make her own thanksgiving.

Isabel went to her room as one in a dream. She was soon in bed again, but could not sleep; the vision of that strange worship she had assisted at; the pictorial details of it, the glow of the two candles on the shoulders of the crimson chasuble as the priest bent to kiss the altar or to adore; the bowed head of the server at his side; the picture overhead with the Mother and her downcast eyes, and the radiant Child stepping from her knees to bless the world—all this burned on the darkness. With the least effort of imagination too she could recall the steady murmur of the unfamiliar words; hear the rustle of the silken vestment; the stirrings and breathings of the worshippers in the little room.

Then in endless course the intellectual side of it all began to present itself. She had assisted at what the Government called a crime; it was for that—that collection of strange but surely at least innocent things—actions, words, material objects—that men and women of the same flesh and blood as herself were ready to die; and for which others equally of one nature with herself were ready to put them to death. It was the mass—the mass—she had seen—she repeated the word to herself, so sinister, so suggestive, so mighty. Then she began to think again—if indeed it is possible to say that she had ever ceased to think of him—of Anthony, who would be so much horrified if he knew; of Hubert, who had renounced this wonderful worship, and all, she feared, for love of her—and above all of her father, who had regarded it with such repugnance:—yes, thought Isabel, but he knows all now. Then she thought of Mistress Margaret again. After all, the nun had a spiritual life which in intensity and purity surpassed any she had ever experienced or even imagined; and yet the heart of it all was the mass. She thought of the old wrinkled quiet face when she came back to breakfast at the Dower House: she had soon learnt to read from that face whether mass had been said that morning or not at the Hall. And Mistress Margaret was only one of thousands to whom this little set of actions half seen and words half heard, wrought and said by a man in a curious dress, were more precious than all meditation and prayer put together. Could the vast superstructure of prayer and effort and aspiration rest upon a piece of empty folly such as children or savages might invent?

Then very naturally, as she began now to get quieter and less excited, she passed on to the spiritual side of it.

Had that indeed happened that Mistress Margaret believed—that the very Body and Blood of her own dear Saviour, Jesus Christ, had in virtue of His own clear promise—His own clear promise!—become present there under the hands of His priest? Was it, indeed,—this half-hour action,—the most august mystery of time, the Lamb eternally slain, presenting Himself and His Death before the Throne in a tremendous and bloodless Sacrifice—so august that the very angels can only worship it afar off and cannot perform it; or was it all a merely childish piece of blasphemous mummery, as she had been brought up to believe? And then this Puritan girl, who was beginning to taste the joys of release from her misery now that she had taken this step, and united a whole-hearted offering of herself to the perfect Offering of her Lord—now her soul made its first trembling movement towards a real external authority. "I believe," she rehearsed to herself, "not because my spiritual experience tells me that the Mass is true, for it does not; not because the Bible says so, because it is possible to interpret that in more than one way; but because that Society which I now propose to treat as Divine—the Representative of the Incarnate Word—nay, His very mystical Body—tells me so: and I rely upon that, and rest in her arms, which are the Arms of the Everlasting, and hang upon her lips, through which the Infallible Word speaks."

And so Isabel, in a timid peace at last, from her first act of Catholic faith, fell asleep.

She awoke to find the winter sun streaming into her room, and Mistress Margaret by her bedside.

"Dear child," said the old lady, "I would not wake you earlier; you have had such a short night; but James leaves in an hour's time; and it is just nine o'clock, and I know you wish to see him."

When she came down half an hour later she found Mistress Margaret waiting for her outside Lady Maxwell's room.

"He is in there," she said. "I will tell Mary"; and she slipped in. Isabel outside heard the murmur of voices, and in a moment more was beckoned in by the nun.

James Maxwell was sitting back in a great chair, looking exhausted and white. His mother, with something of the same look of supreme suffering and triumph, was standing behind his chair. She smiled gravely and sweetly at Isabel, as if to encourage her; and went out at the further door, followed by her sister.

"Mistress Isabel," said the priest, without any introductory words, in his broken voice, and motioning her to a seat, "I cannot tell you what joy it was to see you at mass. Is it too much to hope that you will seek admission presently to the Catholic Church?"

Isabel sat with downcast eyes. His tone was a little startling to her. It was as courteous as ever, but less courtly: there was just the faintest ring in it, in spite of its weakness, as of one who spoke with authority.

"I—I thank you, Mr. James," she said. "I wish to hear more at any rate."

"Yes, Mistress Isabel; and I thank God for it. Mr. Barnes will be the proper person. My mother will let him know; and I have no doubt that he will receive you by Easter, and that you can make your First Communion on that day."

She bowed her head, wondering a little at his assurance.

"You will forgive me, I know, if I seem discourteous," went on the priest, "but I trust you understand the terms on which you come. You come as a little child, to learn; is it not so? Simply that?"

She bowed her head again.

"Then I need not keep you. If you will kneel, I will give you my blessing."

She knelt down at once before him, and he blessed her, lifting his wrenched hand with difficulty and letting it sink quickly down again.

By an impulse she could not resist she leaned forward on her knees and took it gently into her two soft hands and kissed it.

"Oh! forgive him, Mr. Maxwell; I am sure he did not know." And then her tears poured down.

"My child," said his voice tenderly, "in any case I not only forgive him, but I thank him. How could I not? He has brought me love-tokens from my Lord."

She kissed his hand again, and stood up; her eyes were blinded with tears; but they were not all for grief.

Then Mistress Margaret came in from the inner room, and led the girl out; and the mother came in once more to her son for the ten minutes before he was to leave her.



CHAPTER XII

A STRIFE OF TONGUES

Anthony now settled down rather drearily to the study of religious controversy. The continual contrasts that seemed forced upon him by the rival systems of England and Rome (so far as England might be said to have a coherent system at this time), all tended to show him that there were these two sharply-divided schemes, each claiming to represent Christ's Institution, and each exclusive of the other. Was it of Christ's institution that His Church should be a department of the National Life; and that the civil prince should be its final arbiter and ruler, however little he might interfere in its ordinary administration? This was Elizabeth's idea. Or was the Church, as Mr. Buxton had explained it, a huge unnational Society, dependent, it must of course be, to some extent on local circumstances, but essentially unrestricted by limit of nationality or of racial tendencies? This was the claim of Rome. Of course an immense number of other arguments circled round this—in fact, most of the arguments that are familiar to controversialists at the present day; but the centre of all, to Anthony's mind, as indeed it was to the mind of the civil and religious authorities of the time, was the question of supremacy—Elizabeth or Gregory?

He read a certain number of books; and it will be remembered that he had followed, with a good deal of intelligence, Campion's arguments. Anthony was no theologian, and therefore missed perhaps the deep, subtle arguments; but he had a normal mind, and was able to appreciate and remember some salient points.

For example, he was impressed greatly by the negative character of Protestantism in such books as Nicholl's "Pilgrimage." In this work a man was held up as a type to be imitated whose whole religion to all appearances consisted of holding the Pope to be Antichrist, and his Church the synagogue of Satan, of disliking the doctrines of merit and of justification by works, of denying the Real Presence, and of holding nothing but what could be proved to his own satisfaction by the Scriptures.

Then he read as much as he could of the great Jewell controversy. This Bishop of Salisbury, who had, however, recanted his Protestant opinions under Mary, and resumed them under Elizabeth, had published in 1562 his "Apology of the Church of England," a work of vast research and learning. Mr. Harding, who had also had the advantage of having been on both sides, had answered it; and then the battle was arrayed. It was of course mostly above Anthony's head; but he gained from what he was able to read of it a very fair estimate of the conflicting theses, though he probably could not have stated them intelligibly. He also made acquaintance with another writer against Jewell,—Rastall; and with one or two of Mr. Willet's books, the author of "Synopsis Papismi" and "Tretrastylon Papisticum."

Even more than by paper controversy, however, he was influenced by history that was so rapidly forming before his eyes. The fact and the significance of the supremacy of the Queen in religion was impressed upon him more vividly by her suspension of Grindal than by all the books he ever read: here was the first ecclesiastic of the realm, a devout, humble and earnest man, restrained from exercising his great qualities as ruler and shepherd of his people, by a woman whose religious character certainly commanded no one's respect, even if her moral life were free from scandal; and that, not because the Archbishop had been guilty of any crime or heresy, or was obviously unfitted for his post, but because his conscientious judgment on a point of Church discipline and liberty differed from hers; and this state of things was made possible not by an usurpation of power, but by the deliberately ordered system of the Church of England. Anthony had at least sufficient penetration to see that this, as a fundamental principle of religion, however obscured it might be by subsequent developments, was yet fraught with dangers compared with which those of papal interference were comparatively trifling—dangers that is, not so much to earthly peace and prosperity, as to the whole spiritual nature of the nation's Christianity.

Yet another argument had begun to suggest itself, bearing upon the same point, of the relative advantages and dangers of Nationalism. When he had first entered the Archbishop's service he had been inspired by the thought that the Church would share in the rising splendour of England; now he began to wonder whether she could have strength to resist the rising worldliness that was bound to accompany it. It is scarcely likely that men on fire with success, whether military or commercial, will be patient of the restraints of religion. If the Church is independent of the nation, she can protest and denounce freely; if she is knit closely to the nation, such rebuke is almost impossible.

A conversation that Anthony had on this subject at the beginning of February helped somewhat to clear up this point.

He was astonished after dinner one day to hear that Mr. Henry Buxton was at the porter's lodge desiring to see him, and on going out he found that it was indeed his old acquaintance, the prisoner.

"Good-day, Master Norris," said the gentleman, with his eyes twinkling; "you see the mouse has escaped, and is come to call upon the cat."

Anthony inquired further as to the details of his release.

"Well, you see," said Mr. Buxton, "they grew a-weary of me. I talked so loud at them all for one thing; and then you see I was neither priest nor agent nor conspirator, but only a plain country gentleman: so they took some hundred or two pounds off me, to make me still plainer; and let me go. Now, Mr. Norris, will you come and dine with me, and resume our conversation that was so rudely interrupted by my journey last time? But then you see her Majesty would take no denial."

"I have just dined," said Anthony, "but——"

"Well, I will not ask you to see me dine again, as you did last time; but will you then sup with me? I am at the 'Running Horse,' Fleet Street, until to-morrow."

Anthony accepted gladly; for he had been greatly taken with Mr. Buxton; and at six o'clock that evening presented himself at the "Running Horse," and was shown up to a private parlour.

He found Mr. Buxton in the highest good-humour; he was even now on his way from Wisbeach, home again to Tonbridge, and was only staying in London to finish a little business he had.

Before supper was over, Anthony had laid his difficulties before him.

"My dear friend," said the other, and his manner became at once sober and tender, "I thank you deeply for your confidence. After being thought midway between a knave and a fool for over a year, it is a comfort to be treated as an honest gentleman again. I hold very strongly with what you say; it is that, under God, that has kept me steady. As I said to you last time, Christ's Kingdom is not of this world. Can you imagine, for example, Saint Peter preaching religious obedience to Nero to be a Christian's duty? I do not say (God forbid) that her Grace is a Nero, or even a Poppaea; but there is no particular reason why some successor of hers should not be. However, Nero or not, the principle is the same. I do not deny that a National Church may be immensely powerful, may convert thousands, may number zealous and holy men among her ministers and adherents—but yet her foundation is insecure. What when the tempest of God's searching judgments begins to blow?

"Or, to put it plainer, in a parable, you have seen, I doubt not, a gallant and his mistress together. So long as she is being wooed by him, she can command; he sighs and yearns and runs on errands—in short, she rules him. But when they are wedded—ah me! It is she—if he turns out a brute, that is—she that stands while my lord plucks off his boots—she who runs to fetch the tobacco-pipe and lights it and kneels by him. Now I hold that to wed the body spiritual to the body civil, is to wed a delicate dame to a brute. He may dress her well, give her jewels, clap her kindly on the head—but she is under him and no free woman. Ah!"—and then Mr. Buxton's eyes began to shine as Anthony remembered they had done before, and his voice to grow solemn,—"and when the spouse is the Bride of Christ, purchased by His death, what then would be the sin to wed her to a carnal nation, who shall favour her, it may be, while she looks young and fair; but when his mood changes, or her appearance, then she is his slave and his drudge! His will and his whims are her laws; as he changes, so must she. She has to do his foul work; as she had to do for King Henry, as she is doing it now for Queen Bess; and as she will always have to do, God help her, so long as she is wedded to the nation, instead of being free as the handmaiden and spouse of Christ alone. My faith would be lost, Mr. Norris, and my heart broken quite, if I were forced to think the Church of England to be the Church of Christ."

They talked late that evening in the private baize-curtained parlour on the third floor. Anthony produced his difficulties one by one, and Mr. Buxton did his best to deal with them. For example, Anthony remarked on the fact that there had been no breach of succession as to the edifices and endowments of the Church; that the sees had been canonically filled, and even the benefices; and that therefore, like it or not, the Church of England now was identical with the Pre-Reformation Church.

"Distinguo," said his friend. "Of course she is the successor in one sense: what you say is very true. It is impossible to put your finger all along the line of separation. It is a serrated line. The affairs of a Church and a nation are so vast that that is sure to be so; although if you insist, I will point to the Supremacy Act of 1559 and the Uniformity Act of the same year as very clear evidences of a breach with the ancient order; in the former the governance is shifted from its original owner, the Vicar of Christ, and placed on Elizabeth; it was that that the Carthusian Fathers and Sir Thomas More and many others died sooner than allow: and the latter Act sweeps away all the ancient forms of worship in favour of a modern one. But I am not careful to insist upon those points; if you deny or disprove them,—though I do not envy any who attempts that—yet even then my principle remains, that all that to which the Church of England has succeeded is the edifices and the endowments; but that her spirit is wholly new. If a highwayman knocks me down to-morrow, strips me, clothes himself with my clothes, and rides my horse, he is certainly my successor in one sense; yet he will be rash if he presents himself to my wife and sons—though I have none, by the way—as the proper owner of my house and name."

"But there is no knocking down in the question," said Anthony. "The bishops and clergy, or the greater part of them, consented to the change."

Mr. Buxton smiled.

"Very well," he said; "yet the case is not greatly different if the gentleman threatens me with torture instead, if I do not voluntarily give him my clothes and my horse. If I were weak and yielded to him, yes, and made promises of all kinds in my cowardice—yet he would be no nearer being the true successor of my name and fortune. And if you read her Grace's Acts, and King Henry's too, you will find that that was precisely what took place. My dear sir," Mr. Buxton went on, "if you will pardon my saying it, I am astounded at the effrontery of your authorities who claim that there was no breach. Your Puritans are wiser; they at least frankly say that the old was Anti-Christian; that His Holiness (God forgive me for saying it!), was an usurper: and that the new Genevan theology is the old gospel brought to light again. That I can understand; and indeed most of your churchmen think so too; and that there was a new beginning made with Protestantism. But when her Grace calls herself a Catholic, and tells the poor Frenchmen that it is the old religion here still: and your bishops, or one or two of them rather, like Cheyney, I suppose, say so too—then I am rendered dumb—(if that were possible). If it is the same, then why, a-God's name, were the altars dragged down, and the screens burned, and the vestments and the images and the stoups and the pictures and the ornaments, all swept out? Why, a-God's name, was the old mass blotted out and this new mingle-mangle brought in, if it be all one? And for the last time, a-God's name, why is it death to say mass now, if it be all one? Go, go: Such talk is foolishness, and worse."

Mr. Buxton was silent for a moment as Anthony eyed him; and then burst out again.

"Ah! but worse than all are the folks that stand with one leg on either stool. We are the old Church, say they;—standing with the Protestant leg in the air,—therefore let us have the money and the buildings: they are our right. And then when a poor Catholic says, Then let us have the old mass, and the old penance and the old images: Nay, nay, nay, they say, lifting up the Catholic leg and standing on the other, those are Popery; and we are Protestants; we have made away with all such mummery and muniments of superstition. And so they go see-sawing to and fro. When you run at one leg they rest them on the other, and you know not where to take them."

And so the talk went on. When the evening was over, and Anthony was rising to return to Lambeth, Mr. Buxton put his hand on his arm.

"Good Mr. Norris," he said, "you have been very patient with me. I have clacked this night like an old wife, and you have borne with me: and now I ask your pardon again. But I do pray God that He may show you light and bring you to the true Church; for there is no rest elsewhere."

Anthony thanked him for his good wishes.

"Indeed," he said, too, "I am grateful for all that you have said. You have shown me light, I think, on some things, and I ask your prayers."

"I go to Stanfield to-morrow," said Mr. Buxton; "it is a pleasant house, though its master says so, not far from Sir Philip Sidney's: if you would but come and see me there!"

"I am getting greatly perplexed," said Anthony, "and I think that in good faith I cannot stay long with the Archbishop; and if I leave him how gladly will I come to you for a few days; but it must not be till then."

"Ah! if you would but make the Spiritual Exercises in my house; I will provide a conductor; and there is nothing that would resolve your doubts so quickly."

Anthony was interested in this; and asked further details as to what these were.

"It is too late," said Mr. Buxton, "to tell you to-night. I will write from Stanfield."

Mr. Buxton came downstairs with Anthony to see him on to his horse, and they parted with much good-will; and Anthony rode home with a heavy and perplexed heart to Lambeth.

* * * *

He spent a few days more pondering; and then determined to lay his difficulties before the Archbishop; and resign his position if Grindal thought it well.

He asked for an interview, and the Archbishop appointed an hour in the afternoon at which he would see him in Cranmer's parlour, the room above the vestry which formed part of the tower that Archbishop Cranmer had added to Lambeth House.

Anthony, walking up and down in the little tiled cloisters by the creek, a few minutes before the hour fixed, heard organ-music rolling out of the chapel windows; and went in to see who was playing. He came in through the vestry, and looking to the west end gallery saw there the back of old Dr. Tallis, seated at the little positive organ that the late Archbishop had left in his chapel, and which the present Archbishop had gladly retained, for he was a great patron of music, and befriended many musicians when they needed help—Dr. Tallis, as well as Byrd, Morley and Tye. There were a few persons in the chapel listening, the Reverend Mr. Wilson, one of the chaplains, being among them; and Anthony thought that he could not do better than sit here a little and quiet his thoughts, which were nervous and distracted at the prospect of his coming interview. He heard voices from overhead, which showed that the Archbishop was engaged; so he spoke to an usher stationed in the vestry, telling him that he was ready as soon as the Archbishop could receive him, and that he would wait in the chapel; and then made his way down to one of the return stalls at the west end, against the screen, and took his seat there.

This February afternoon was growing dark, and the only lights in the chapel were those in the organ loft; but there was still enough daylight outside to make the windows visible—those famous windows of Morton's, which, like those in King's Chapel, Cambridge, combined and interpreted the Old and New Testaments by an ingenious system of types and antitypes, in the manner of the "Biblia Pauperum." There was then only a single subject in each light; and Anthony let his eyes wander musingly to and fro in the east window from the central figure of the Crucified to the types on either side, especially to a touching group of the unconscious Isaac carrying the wood for his own death, as Christ His Cross. Beneath, instead of the old stately altar glowing with stuffs and precious metals and jewels which had once been the heart of this beautiful shrine, there stood now a plain solid wooden table that the Archbishop used for the Communion. Anthony looked at it, and sighed a little to himself. Did the altar and the table then mean the same thing?

Meanwhile the glorious music was rolling overhead in the high vaulted roof. The old man was extemporising; but his manner was evident even in that; there was a simple solemn phrase that formed his theme, and round this adorning and enriching it moved the grave chords. On and on travelled the melody, like the flow of a broad river; now sliding steadily through a smiling land of simple harmonies, where dwelt a people of plain tastes and solid virtues; now passing over shallows where the sun glanced and played in the brown water among the stones, as light arpeggio chords rippled up and vanished round about the melody; now entering a land of mighty stones and caverns where the echoes rang hollow and resonant, as the counterpoint began to rumble and trip like boulders far down out of sight, in subaqueous gloom; now rolling out again and widening, fuller and deeper as it went, moving in great masses towards the edge of the cataract that lies like a line across the landscape: it is inevitable now, the crash must come;—a chord or two pausing,—pausing;—and then the crash, stupendous and sonorous.

Then on again through elaborate cities where the wits and courtiers dwell, and stately palaces slide past upon the banks, and barges move upon its breast, on to the sea—that final full close that embraces and engulfs all music, all effort, all doubts and questionings, whether in art or theology, all life of intellect, heart or will—that fathomless eternal deep from which all comes and to which all returns, that men call the Love of God.

* * * *

Anthony stirred in his seat; he had been here ten minutes, proposing to take his restless thoughts in hand and quiet them; and, lo! it had been done for him by the master who sat overhead. Here he, for the moment, remained, ready for anything—glad to take up the wood and bear it to the Mount of Sacrifice—content to be carried on in that river of God's Will to the repose of God's Heart—content to dwell meantime in the echoing caverns of doubt—in the glancing shadows and lights of an active life—in his own simple sunlit life in the country—or even to plunge over the cataract down into the fierce tormented pools in the dark—for after all the sea lay beyond; and he who commits himself to the river is bound to reach it.

He heard a step, and the usher stood by him.

"His Grace is ready, Master Norris."

Anthony rose and followed him.

The Archbishop received him with the greatest kindness. As Anthony came in he half rose, peering with his half-blind eyes, and smiling and holding out his hands.

"Come, Master Norris," he said, "you are always welcome. Sit down;" and he placed him in a chair at the table close by his own.

"Now, what is it?" he said kindly; for the old man's heart was a little anxious at this formal interview that had been requested by this favourite young officer of his.

Then Anthony, without any reserve, told him all; tracing out the long tale of doubt by landmarks that he remembered; mentioning the effect produced on his mind by the Queen's suspension of the Archbishop, especially dwelling on the arrest, the examination and the death of Campion, that had made such a profound impression upon him; upon his own reading and trains of thought, and the conversations with Mr. Buxton, though of course he did not mention his name; he ended by saying that he had little doubt that sooner or later he would be compelled to leave the communion of the Church of England for that of Rome; and by placing his resignation in the Archbishop's hands, with many expressions of gratitude for the unceasing kindness and consideration that he had always received at his hands.

There was silence when he had finished. A sliding panel in the wall near the chapel had been pushed back, and the mellow music of Dr. Tallis pealed softly in, giving a sweet and melodious background, scarcely perceived consciously by either of them, and yet probably mellowing and softening their modes of expression during the whole of the interview.

"Mr. Norris," said the Archbishop at last, "I first thank you for the generous confidence you have shown towards me: and I shall put myself under a further obligation to you by accepting your resignation: and this I do for both our sakes. For yours, because, as you confess, this action of the Queen's—(I neither condemn nor excuse it myself)—this action has influenced your thoughts: therefore you had best be removed from it to a place where you can judge more quietly. And I accept it for my own sake too; for several reasons that I need not trouble you with. But in doing this, I desire you, Mr. Norris, to continue to draw your salary until Midsummer:—nay, nay, you must let me have my say. You are at liberty to withdraw as soon as you have wound up your arrangements with Mr. Somerdine; he will now, as Yeoman of the Horse, have your duties as well as his own; for I do not intend to have another Gentleman of the Horse. As regards an increase of salary for him, that can wait until I see him myself. In any case, Mr. Norris, I think you had better withdraw before Mid-Lent Sunday.

"And now for your trouble. I know very well that I cannot be of much service to you. I am no controversialist. But I must bear my witness. This Papist with whom you have had talk seems a very plausible fellow. His arguments sound very plain and good; and yet I think you could prove anything by them. They seem to me like that openwork embroidery such as you see on Communion linen sometimes, in which the pattern is formed by withdrawing certain threads. He has cleverly omitted just those points that would ruin his argument; and he has made a pretty design. But any skilful advocate could make any other design by the same methods. He has not thought fit to deal with such words of our Saviour as what He says on Tradition; with what the Scriptures say against the worshipping of angels; with what St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Colossians, in the second chapter, concerning all those carnal ordinances which were done away by Christ, but which have been restored by the Pope in his despite; he does not deal with those terrible words concerning the man of sin and the mystery of iniquity. In fact, he takes just one word that Christ let fall about His Kingdom, and builds this great edifice upon it. You might retort to him in a thousand ways such as these. Bishop Jewell, in his book, as you know, deals with these questions and many more; far more fully than it is possible for you and me even to dream of doing. Nay, Mr. Norris; the only argument I can lay before you is this. There are difficulties and troubles everywhere; that there are such in the Church of England, who would care to deny? that there are equally such, aye, and far more, in the Church of Rome, who would care to deny, either? Meanwhile, the Providence of God has set you here and not there. Whatever your difficulties are here, are not of your choosing; but if you fly there (and I pray God you will not) there they will be. Be content, Master Norris; indeed you have a goodly heritage; be content with it; lest losing that you lose all."

Anthony was greatly touched by this moderate and courteous line that the Archbishop was taking. He knew well in his heart that the Church of Rome was, in the eyes of this old man, a false and deceitful body, for whom there was really nothing to be said. Grindal, in his travels abroad during the Marian troubles, had been deeply attracted by the Genevan theology, with whose professors he had never wholly lost touch; and Anthony guessed what an effort it was costing him, and what a strain it was on his conscience, thus to combine courtesy with faithfulness to what he believed to be true.

Grindal apparently feared he had sacrificed his convictions, for he presently added: "You know, Mr. Norris, that I think very much worse of Papistry than I have expressed; but I have refrained because I think that would not help you; and I desire to do that more than to relieve myself."

Anthony thanked him for his gentleness; saying that he quite understood his motives in speaking as he had done, and was deeply obliged to him for it.

The Archbishop, however, as indeed were most of the English Divines of the time, was far more deeply versed in destructive than constructive theology; and, to Anthony's regret, was presently beginning in that direction.