Mrs Rose was crying more quietly now, and Isoult rose to depart. Mr Rose said he would help her to mount, and she fancied that he wished to speak with her in private. And so she found it; for no sooner had he shut the door, than he said—
“Mrs Avery, what do you touching Robin’s orders?”
Isoult replied as she had done to Mrs Underhill, and added that she meant to talk the matter over with John, when she could do so quietly. “But, Mr Rose,” she said, “your three years be already gone.”
“Friend,” he answered, his lip quivering, “had I made it three hundred years, maybe it had been the better.”
“I pray you say not that you will not give her unto him!” cried Isoult—for she guessed what that would be to Robin, and perchance to Thekla.
“I will say no such thing,” he answered. “It should seem that Robin’s orders can now scarce be had; and if it were so, I tell you the truth, mine heart were the lighter. Thekla must choose for herself. She is now of ripe age to know what is for and against the same; and if she would have rather Robin and what may hap than to leave both, I will not gainsay her choice. But if she seeketh mine avisement—”
“You will say her nay?” asked Isoult, fearfully, as he hesitated.
“Can I say any thing else?” answered Mr Rose in a low voice. “Were it worse for Thekla to be let from wedding him, or to be roughly parted from him ere they had been wed a year—perchance a month? If Robin should choose not to endeavour himself for the priesthood, then of force is there no such difficulty. But can I look forward to the parting that must ere long come between my Marguerite and me, and lightly choose the same doom for our child?”
Mr Rose’s voice fell, and his face changed so painfully that the listener could scarcely bear to see it.
“Think you that must come?” she said in a voice hardly above a whisper.