“I cannot say, my children; she may have fallen over by accident, but Master Richard thinks that she threw herself over. You know, little girl, how she hated you,” he said, turning to Aline, “and she must have been bitterly chagrined that everything has gone so well with you. Perhaps he is right, but let us speak of other things.” He stopped, and for a time no one said anything at all. Then, moved by some motive that he could not explain, he went on,--“Children, I shall soon have to bid you farewell.” “Oh, why?” they both said in a breath. “I do not know what prompts me to tell you, Mistress Aline,” he said. Aline started; it was the first time he had ever addressed her like that; and the old man continued,--“I have not yet said anything to any one else, even of the old faith; and I know, child,” he went on, dropping into the more familiar manner, “that you are not of us; so why I should tell you, a mere child, and a heretic,”--he lingered on the word regretfully,--“I am unable to say. The Queen’s Grace is minded that there shall be an act of Uniformity for this realm and that the prayer book of 1552 shall be re-affirmed. It liketh me not and I shall not subscribe and therefore shall lose my benefice. I had hoped to end my days in Middleton, but it cannot be, and I must, if he be willing, take up my abode with my nephew. It will be a sore grief to me after all these years. “But my work is done and I must not repine. One thing, Aline, child, I would say, and that is this,--thou mindest how I have ever told thee that the light must overcome the dark, and so has it been with the machinations of that poor evil woman. So hath it been with you; not that it will be ever so with things temporal, but it will be so in the world of the unseen and eternal. But farewell, my children, and I must go. Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”[30] [30] May almighty God bless you, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. When he had gone Audry said, “How unjust it is that Father Ambrose will remain and that Father Laurence should go.” “How so?” said Aline. “Have you not heard; Father Ambrose hath said that he will subscribe to anything that will keep his place, and he is the very man who persecuted you in the name of the Church?” “What a scoundrel!” said Aline. “I had liever see Father Laurence, the Catholic, than Father Ambrose, the protestant, hold his own, protestant though I be. I must see if the Duke may not be able to do something, though he be not of this realm. Now that Queen Elizabeth’s Grace hath come to the throne he hath many friends who are right powerful in this land. Father Laurence is an old man, and will not be long in this life in anywise; methinks it will not be a hard matter.” “I hope you will succeed,” said Audry, “and I shall do my best with Master Richard that Father Ambrose be moved, whatever dishonest shifts he may practice.”