“You would speedily hear if we did not,” was the answer.
Mr Roberts sighed heavily as he laid down the key.
“Well, I did hope to keep me out of this mess. I had thought, by outward conforming, and divers rich gifts to the priest, and so forth— ’Tis hard a man cannot be at peace in his own house.”
“’Tis far harder when he is not at peace in his own soul.”
“Ah!” The tone of the exclamation said that was quite too good to expect, at any rate for the speaker.
Mrs Collenwood laid her hand on her brother’s shoulder.
“Tom, we are parting for a long season—it may be for all time. Suffer me speak one word with thee, for the sake of our loving mother, and for her saintly sake that sleepeth in All Saints’ churchyard, whose head lay on my bosom when her spirit passed to God. There will come a day, good brother, when thou shalt stand before an higher tribunal than that of my Lord Cardinal, to hear a sentence whence there shall be none appeal. What wouldst thou in that day that thou hadst done in this? As thou wilt wish thou hadst done then, do now.”
“I—can’t,” faltered the unhappy waverer.
“I would as lief be scalded and have done with it, Tom, as live in such endless terror of hot water coming nigh me. Depend on it, it should be the lesser suffering in the end.”
“There’s Gertrude,” he suggested in the same tone.