Even as she spoke there was the sound of a door thrown violently open and old Sir Nicholas appeared on the top of the steps, hatless and plainly in a state of great agitation; beside him stood a courier, covered with the dust of the white roads, and his face crimson with hard riding. Sir Nicholas stood there as if dazed, and Lady Maxwell sprang up quickly to go to him. But a moment after there appeared behind him a little group, his son James, Miss Corbet and a servant or two; while Anthony hung back; and Mr. James came up quickly, and took his father by the arm; and together the little company came down the steps into the still and sunny garden. "What is it?" cried Lady Maxwell, trying to keep her voice under control; while Mistress Margaret laid her work quietly down, and stood up too. "Tell my lady," said Sir Nicholas to the courier, who stood a little apart. "If you please, my lady," he said, as if repeating a lesson, "a Bull of the Holy Father has been found nailed to the door of the Bishop of London's palace, deposing Elizabeth and releasing all her subjects from their allegiance." Lady Maxwell went to her husband and took him by the arm gently. "What does it mean, sweetheart?" she asked. "It means that Catholics must choose between their sovereign and their God." "God have mercy," said a servant behind. CHAPTER VI MR. STEWART Sir Nicholas' exclamatory sentence was no exaggeration. That terrible choice of which he spoke, with his old eyes shining with the desire to make it, did not indeed come so immediately as he anticipated; but it came none the less. From every point of view the Bull was unfortunate, though it may have been a necessity; for it marked the declaration of war between England and the Catholic Church. A gentle appeal had been tried before; Elizabeth, who, it must be remembered had been crowned during mass with Catholic ceremonial, and had received the Blessed Sacrament, had been entreated by the Pope as his "dear daughter in Christ" to return to the Fold; and now there seemed to him no possibility left but this ultimatum.