"What is that?" cried the lawyer.
"It is Mr. Beale going past, sir," answered a voice.
Robin lifted his eyes with an effort and looked. Even as he did so there came a trampling of horses' hoofs; and then, in the light that streamed from the windows, there appeared a company on horseback. They were too far away from where he sat, and the lights were too confusing, for him to see more than the general crowd that went by—perhaps from a dozen to twenty all told. But by them ran the heads of men who had waited at the bridge to see them go by; and a murmuring of voices came even through the closed windows. It was plain that others besides those who were close to her Grace, saw a sinister significance in Mr. Beale's arrival.
VI
Robin had hardly reached his room after supper and a little dessert in the parlour, before Merton came in. He drew his hand out of his breast as he entered, and, with a strange look, gave the priest a folded letter. Robin took it without a word and read it through.
After a pause he said to the other:
"Who were those two men that came before supper? I saw them ride up."
"There is only one, sir. He is one of Mr. Walsingham's men."
"There were two," said the priest.
"I will inquire, sir," said the young man, looking anxiously from the priest's face to the note and back again.