"I grant it all, Tom, and I thank you truly for your brotherly care. But it alway comes to the same end, whensoever I meditate thereon: I cannot leave you and Gertrude." "But wherefore no, Grena? Surely we should miss your good company, right truly: but to know that you were safe were compensation enough for that. True should be old enough to keep the house--there be many housewives younger--or if no; surely the old servants can go on as they are used, without your oversight. Margery and Osmund, at least--" "They lack not my oversight, and assuredly not Gertrude's. But you would miss me, Tom: and I could not be happy touching True." "Wherefore? Why, Grena, you said yourself they should lay no hand on her." "Nor will they. But Gertrude is one that lacks a woman about her that loveth her, and will yet be firm with her. I cannot leave the child-- Paulina's child--to go maybe to an ill end, for the lack of my care and love. She sees not the snares about her heedless feet, and would most likely be tangled in them ere you saw them. Maids lack mothers more than even fathers; and True hath none save me." "Granted. But for all that, Grena, I would not sacrifice you." "Tom, if the Lord would have me here, be sure He shall not shut me up in Canterbury Castle. And if He lacks me there, I am ready to go. He will see to you and True in that case." "But if He lack you at Shardeford, Grena? How if this journey of Mr Laxton be His provision for you, so being?" There was silence for a moment. "Ay," said Grena Holland then, "if you and Gertrude go with me. If not, I shall know it is not the Lord's bidding." "I! I never dreamed thereof." "Suppose, then, you dream thereof now." "Were it not running away from duty?" "Methinks not. `When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another,' said our Lord. I see no duty that you have to leave. Were you a Justice of Peace, like your brother, it might be so: but what such have you? But one thing do I see--and you must count the cost, Tom. It may be your estate shall be sequestered, and all your goods taken to the Queen's use. 'Tis perchance a choice betwixt life and liberty on the one hand, and land and movables on the other." Mr Roberts walked up and down the room, lost in deep thought. It was a hard choice to make: yet "all that a man hath will he give for his life." "Oh for the days of King Edward the First," he sighed. "Verily, we valued not our blessings whilst we had them." Grena's look was sympathising; but she left him to think out the question. "If I lose Primrose Croft," he said meditatively, "the maids will have nought." "They will have Shardeford when my mother dieth." "You," he corrected. "You were the elder sister, Grena." "What is mine is theirs and yours," she said quietly. "You may wed, Grena." She gave a little amused laugh. "Methinks, Tom, you may leave that danger out of the question. Shardeford Hall will some day be Gertrude's and Pandora's."