Lady Maxwell still stood perfectly rigid by the window, waiting, and Isabel stared with white face and great open eyes at the door; outside, the flame of a lamp on the wall was blowing about furiously in the draught.
Then a stranger stepped into the room; evidently a gentleman; he bowed to the two ladies, and stood, with the rime on his boots and a whip in his hand, a little exhausted and disordered by hard riding.
“Lady Maxwell?” he said.
Lady Maxwell bowed a little.
“I come with news of your son, madam, the priest; he is alive and well; but he is in trouble. He was taken this morning in his mass-vestments; and is in the Marshalsea.”
Lady Maxwell’s lips moved a little; but no sound came.
“He was betrayed, madam, by a friend. He and thirty other Catholics were taken all together at mass.”
Then Lady Maxwell spoke; and her voice was dead and hard.
“The friend, sir! What was his name?”
“The traitor’s name, madam, is Anthony Norris.”