"I have seen one in him," he said.
Anthony clapped him on the shoulder, not unkindly.
"Forgive me, my Robin. I did not think what I said. Well; we will leave it at that. And you would not give me absolution?"
The priest shook his head.
"Then give me your blessing," said Anthony, dropping on his knees. "And so we will close up the quasi-sigillum confessionis."
III
It was a heavy-hearted priest that presently, downstairs, stood with Anthony in one of the guest-rooms, and was made known to half a dozen strangers. Every word that he had heard upstairs must be as if it had never been spoken, from the instant at which Anthony had first sat down to the instant in which he had kneeled down to receive his blessing. So much he knew from his studies at Rheims. He must be to each man that he met, that which he would have been to him an hour ago. Yet, though as a man he must know nothing, his priest's heart was heavy in his breast. It was a strange home-coming—to pass from the ordered piety of the college: to the whirl of politics and plots in which good and evil span round together—honest and fiery zeal for God's cause, mingled with what he was persuaded was crime and abomination. He had thought that a priest's life would be a simple thing, but it seemed otherwise now.
He spoke with those half-dozen men—those who knew him well enough for a priest; and presently, when some of his own party came, drew aside again with Anthony, who began to tell him in a low voice of the personages there.
"These are all my private friends," he said, "and some of them be men of substance in their own place. There is Mr. Charnoc, of Lancashire, he with the gilt sword. He is of the Court of her Grace, and comes and goes as he pleases. He is lodged in Whitehall, and comes here but to see his friends. And there is Mr. Savage, in the new clothes, with his beard cut short. He is a very honest fellow, but of a small substance, though of good family enough."
"Her Grace has some of her ladies, too, that are Catholics, has she not?" asked Robin.