"Christ save all here!" said the priest, in reply to Margery's reverential curtsey. "Is your master within, good woman?" "No, Father, an't like you." "No? He is not wont to go forth thus early. Mistress Grena?" "No, Sir, nor Mistress Gertrude neither." The priest lifted his eyebrows. "All hence! whither be they gone?" "An' it please you, Sir, I know not." "That is strange. Went they together?" "No, Sir, separate." "Said they nought touching their absence?" "Not to me, Father." "Have you no fantasy at all whither they went?" "I took it, Sir, that my master went to the works, as he is wont of a Tuesday; and I thought Mistress Grena was a-visiting some friend. Touching Mistress Gertrude I can say nought." "She went not forth alone, surely?" "She took Jack withal, Sir--none else." The conviction was slowly growing in Mr Bastian's mind that the wave of that feathery tail had deprived him of the only means of communication which he was ever likely to have with Gertrude Roberts. "The sly minx!" he said to himself. Then aloud to Margery, "Do I take you rightly that all they departed yesterday, and have not yet returned?" "That is sooth, Father." Margery stood holding the door, with a calm, stolid face, which looked as if an earthquake would neither astonish nor excite her. Mr Bastian took another arrow from his quiver, one which he generally found to do considerable execution. "Woman," he said sternly, "you know more than you have told me!" "Father, with all reverence, I know no more than you." Her eyes met his with no appearance of insincerity. "Send Osmund to me," he said, walking into the house, and laying down his hat and stick on the settle in the hall. "Sir, under your good pleasure, Osmund went with Mistress." "And turned not again?" "He hath not come back here, Sir." "Then they have taken flight!" cried the priest in a passion. "Margery Danby, as you fear the judgment of the Church, and value her favour, I bid you tell me whither they are gone." "Sir, even for holy Church's favour, I cannot say that which I know not." "On your soul's salvation, do you not know it?" he said solemnly. "On my soul's salvation, Sir, I know it not." The priest strode up and down the hall more than once. Then he came and faced Margery, who was now standing beside the wide fireplace in the hall. "Have you any guess whither your master may be gone, or the gentlewomen?" "I've guessed a many things since yester-even, Sir," answered Margery quietly, "but which is right and which is wrong I can't tell." "When Mistress Collenwood and Mistress Pandora went hence secretly in the night-time, knew you thereof, beforehand?" "Surely no, Father." "Had you any ado with their departing?" "The first thing I knew or guessed thereof, Father, was the next morrow, when I came into the hall and saw them not."