"There was no rest for me till I did. 'And Christ also went away sorrowful,' were his last words. And I could not bear to think that."
Marjorie was silent through pure sympathy. This young man spoke a language she understood better than that which some of her friends used—Mr. Babington, for instance. It was the Person of Jesus Christ that was all her religion to her; it was for this that she was devout, that she went to mass and the sacraments when she could; it was this that made Mary dear to her. Was He not her son? And, above all, it was for this that she had sacrificed Robin: she could not bear that he should not serve Him as a priest, if he might. But the other talk that she had heard sometimes—of the place of religion in politics, and the justification of this or that course of public action—well, she knew that these things must be so; yet it was not the manner of her own most intimate thought, and the language of it was not hers.
The two went together so a few paces, without speaking. Then she had a sudden impulse.
"And do you ever think of what may come upon you?" she asked. "Do you ever think of the end?
"Aye," he said.
"And what do you think the end will be?"
She saw him raise his eyes to her an instant.
"I think," he said, "that I shall die for my faith some day."
That same strange shiver that passed over her at her mother's bedside, passed over her again, as if material things grew thin about her. There was a tone in his voice that made it absolutely clear to her that he was not speaking of a fancy, but of some certain knowledge that he had. Yet she dared not ask him, and she was a middle-aged woman before the news came to her of his death upon the rack.