Mr. Audrey slipped off his horse, scrambled to the door, set his hands on his knees and his mouth to the keyhole.

“Open the door, you fool, in the Queen’s name....  I am Mr. Audrey, of Matstead.”

Again came the pause.  The magistrate was in the act of turning to bid his men beat the door in, when once more the voice came.

“I’ll tell the mistress, sir....  She’s a-bed.”

* * * * *

His discomfort grew on him as he waited, staring out at the fast yellowing sky. (Beneath him the slopes towards the valley and the far-off hills on the other side appeared like a pencil drawing, delicate, minute and colourless, or, at the most, faintly tinted in phantoms of their own colours.  The sky, too, was grey with the night mists not yet dissolved.) It was an unneighbourly action, this of his, he thought.  He must do his best to make it as little offensive as he could.  He turned to his men.

“Now, men,” he said, glaring like a judge, “no violence here, unless I give the order.  No breaking of aught in the house.  The lady here is a friend of mine; and—­”

The great bolts shot back suddenly; he turned as the door opened; and there, pale as milk, with eyes that seemed a-fire, Marjorie’s face was looking at him; she was wrapped in her long cloak and her hood was drawn over her head.  The space behind was crowded with faces, unrecognizable in the shadow.

* * * * *

He saluted her.

“Mistress Manners,” he said, “I am sorry to incommode you in this way.  But a couple of fellows tell me that a man hath come this way, whom they think to be a priest.  I am a magistrate, mistress, and—­”

He stopped, confounded by her face.  It was not like her face at all—­the face, rather, seemed as nothing; her whole soul was in her eyes, crying to him some message that he could not understand.  It appeared impossible to him that this was a mere entreaty that he should leave one more priest at liberty; impossible that the mere shock and surprise should have changed her so....  He looked at her....  Then he began again: 

“It is no will of mine, mistress, beyond my duty.  But I hold her Grace’s commission—­”

She swept back again, motioning him to enter.  He was astonished at his own discomfort, but he followed, and his men pressed close after; and he noticed, even in that twilight, that a look of despair went over the girl’s face, sharp as pain, as she saw them.

“You have come to search my house, sir?” she asked.  Her voice was as colourless as her features.

“My commission, mistress, compels me—­”

Then he noticed that the doors into the hall had been pushed open, and that she was moving towards them.  And he thought he understood.

“Stand back, men,” he barked, so fiercely that they recoiled.  “This lady shall speak with me first.”

* * * * *