"I see there is to be a meeting in the village next Friday—of the
Reformers' League. Mr. Meynell is to speak."
Mary looked up in amazement.
"Yes?"
"You would perhaps like to go. I will go with you."
"Mother!" Mary caught her mother's hand and kissed it, while the tears sprang to her eyes. "I want to go nowhere—to do nothing—that gives you pain!"
"I know that," said Catharine quietly. "But I—I should like to understand him."
And with a light touch of her hand on Mary's red-gold hair, she went back into the house. Mary wandered away by herself into the depths of the woods, weeping, she scarcely knew why. But some sure instinct, lost in wonder as she was, bade her ask her mother no questions; to let time show.
The day of the League meeting came. It happened also to be the date on which the Commission of Inquiry into the alleged heresies and irregularities of the Rector of Upcote was holding its final meeting at Markborough.
The meetings of the commission were held in the Library of the Cathedral, once a collegiate church of the Cistercian order. All trace of the great monastery formerly connected with it had disappeared, except for the Library and a vaulted room below it which now made a passageway from the Deanery to the north transept.
The Library offered a worthy setting for high themes. The walls were, of course, wreathed in the pale golds and dignified browns of old books. A light gallery ran round three sides of the room, while a large perpendicular window at the farther end contained the armorial bearings of various benefactors of the see. Beneath the window was a bookcase containing several chained books—a Vulgate, a Saint Augustine, the Summa of St. Thomas; precious possessions, and famous in the annals of early printing. And wherever there was a space of wall left free, pictures or engravings of former bishops and dignitaries connected with the Cathedral enforced the message and meaning of the room.