In the cloister beneath was a pleasant little oak parlour looking out on to the garden and the long south side of the house. Mistress Margaret took the little hand-lamp that burned in the cloister itself as they passed along silently together, and guided the girl through into the parlour on the left-hand side. There was a tall chair standing before the hearth, and as Mistress Margaret sat down, drawing the girl with her, Isabel sank down on the footstool at her feet, and hid her face on the old nun's knees. There was silence for a minute or two. Mistress Margaret set down the lamp on the table beside her, and passed her hands caressingly over the girl's hands and hair; but said nothing, until Isabel's whole body heaved up convulsively once or twice, before she burst into a torrent of weeping. "My darling," said the old lady in a quiet steady voice, "we should thank God instead of grieving. To think that this house should have given two confessors to the Church, father and son! Yes, yes, dear child, I know what you are thinking of, the two dear lads we both love; well, well, we do not know, we must trust them both to God. It may not be true of Anthony; and even if it be true--well, he must have thought he was serving his Queen. And for Hubert----" Isabel lifted her face and looked with a dreadful questioning stare. "Dear child," said the nun, "do not look like that. Nothing is so bad as not trusting God." "Anthony, Anthony!"... whispered the girl. "James told us the same story as the gentleman on Sunday," went on the nun. "But he said no hard word, and he does not condemn. I know his heart. He does not know why he is released, nor by whose order: but an order came to let him go, and his papers with it: and he must be out of England by Monday morning: so he leaves here to-morrow in the litter in which he came. He is to say mass to-morrow, if he is able." "Mass? Here?" said the girl, in the same sharp whisper; and her sobbing ceased abruptly. "Yes, dear; if he is able to stand and use his hands enough. They have settled it upstairs." Isabel continued to look up in her face wildly. "Ah!" said the old nun again. "You must not look like that. Remember that he thinks those wounds the most precious things in the world--yes--and his mother too!" "I must be at mass," said Isabel; "God means it." "Now, now," said Mistress Margaret soothingly, "you do not know what you are saying." "I mean it," said Isabel, with sharp emphasis; "God means it." Mistress Margaret took the girl's face between her hands, and looked steadily down into her wet eyes. Isabel returned the look as steadily. "Yes, yes," she said, "as God sees us." Then she broke into talk, at first broken and incoherent in language, but definite and orderly in ideas, and in her interpretations of these last months.