“I have only obeyed the impulse of my heart,” resumed the other, passionately, “and uttered what involuntarily rose to my lips. But,” he added, checking himself, “I will not offend you with my admiration. If you have read my letter to your father, you will not require to be informed of the object of my visit.”
“I have not read it,” replied Viviana, returning him the packet with the seal unbroken. “I can give no opinion on any matter of difficulty. And I have no desire to know any secret with which my father might not desire me to be acquainted.”
“Are we overheard?” inquired Catesby, glancing suspiciously at the fire-place.
“By no one whom you would care to overhear us,” returned the maiden.
“Then it is as I supposed,” rejoined Catesby. “Father Oldcorne is concealed behind that mantel-piece?”
Viviana smiled an affirmative.
“Let him come forth, I pray you,” returned Catesby. “What I have to say concerns him as much as yourself or your father; and I would gladly have his voice in the matter.”
“You shall have it, my son,” replied a reverend personage, clad in a priestly garb, stepping from out one side of the mantel-piece, which flew suddenly open, disclosing a recess curiously contrived in the thickness of the wall. “You shall have it,” said Father Oldcorne, for he it was, approaching and extending his arms over him. “Accept my blessing and my welcome.”
Catesby received the benediction with bowed head and bended knee.
“And now,” continued the priest, “what has the bravest soldier of our church to declare to its lowliest servant?”