Anthony stood still a moment, his heart beating a little. What was this strange errand? and Isabel! what had she to do with this house buried away in the courts of the great city? As he waited he heard a door close somewhere behind him, and the shuffling footsteps had ceased. He touched the hilt of his knife once again to give himself courage; and then walked slowly across and rapped on the door. Instantly a voice full of trembling expectancy, cried to him to come in; he turned the handle and stepped into the fire-lit room. It was extremely poorly furnished; a rickety table stood in the centre with a book or two and a basin with a plate, a saucepan hissed and bubbled on the fire; in the corner near the window stood a poor bed; and to this Anthony's attention was immediately directed by a voice that called out hoarsely: "Thank God, sir, thank God, sir, you have come! I feared you would not." Anthony stepped towards it wondering and expectant, but reassured. Lying in the bed, with clothes drawn up to the chin was the figure of a man. There was no light in the room, save that given by the leaping flames on the hearth; and Anthony could only make out the face of a man with a patch over one eye; the man stretched a hand over the bed clothes as he came near, and Anthony took it, a little astonished, and received a strong trembling grip of apparent excitement and relief: "Thank God, sir!" the man said again, "but there is not too much time." "How can I serve you?" said Anthony, sitting on a chair near the bedside. "Your letter spoke of friends at Great Keynes. What did you mean by that?" "Is the d-door closed, sir?" asked the man anxiously; stuttering a little as he spoke. Anthony stepped up and closed it firmly; and then came back and sat down again. "Well then, sir; I believe you are a friend of the priest Mr. M-Maxwell's." Anthony shook his head. "There is no priest of that name that I know." "Ah," cried the man, and his voice shook, "have I said too much? You are Mr. Anthony Norris of the Dower House, and of the Archbishop's household?"... "I am," said Anthony, "but yet----" "Well, well," said the man, "I must go forward now. He whom you know as Mr. James Maxwell is a Catholic p-priest, known to many under the name of Mr. Arthur Oldham. He is in sore d-danger." Anthony was silent through sheer astonishment. This then was the secret of the mystery that had hung round Mr. James so long. The few times he had met him in town since his return, it had been on the tip of his tongue to ask what he did there, and why Hubert was to be master of the Hall; but there was something in Mr. James' manner that made the asking of such a question appear an impossible liberty; and it had remained unasked. "Well," said the man in bed, in anxious terror, "there is no mistake, is there?" "I said nothing," said Anthony, "for astonishment; I had no idea that he was a priest. And how can I serve him?"