"Why do you look at me like that?"
Anthony stood up without answering. Then he began to pace about. As he pa.s.sed the door he looked to the bolt carefully. Then he turned again to his friend.
"Robin," he said, "would you sooner know a truth that will make you unhappy, or be ignorant of it?"
"Does it concern myself or my business?" asked Robin promptly.
"It concerns you and every priest and every Catholic in England. It is what I have hinted to you before."
"Then I will hear it."
"It is as if I told it in confession?"
Robin paused.
"You may make it so," he said, "if you choose."
Anthony looked at him an instant. "Well," he said, "I will not make a confession, because there is no use in that now--but--Well, listen!" he said, and sat down.
II
When he ceased, Robin lifted his head. He was as white as a sheet.
"You have been refused absolution before for this?"
"I was refused absolution by two priests; but I was granted it by a third."
"Let me see that I have the tale right.
"Yourself, with a number of others, have bound yourselves by an oath to kill her Grace, and to set Mary on the throne. This has taken shape now since the beginning of the summer. You yourself are now living in Mr.
Walsingham"s house, in Seething Lane, under the patronage of her Grace, and you show yourself freely at court. You have proceeded so far, under fear of Mr. Ballard"s arrest, as to provide one of your company with clothes and necessaries that can enable him to go to court; and it was your intention, as well as his, that he should take opportunity to kill her Grace. But to-day only you have become persuaded that the old design was the better; and you wish first to arrange matters with the Queen of the Scots, so that when all is ready, you may be the more sure of a rising when that her Grace is killed, and that the Duke of Parma may be in readiness to bring an army into England. It is still your intention to kill her Grace?"
"By G.o.d! it is!" said Anthony, between clenched teeth.
"Then I could not absolve you, even if you came to confession. You may be absolved from your allegiance, as we all are; but you are not absolved from charity and justice towards Elizabeth as a woman. I have consulted theologians on the very point; and--"
Then Anthony sprang up.
"See here, Robin; we must talk this out." He flicked his fingers sharply. "See--we will talk of it as two friends."
"You had better take back those words," said the priest gravely.
"Why?"
"It would be my duty to lay an information! I understood you spoke to me as to a priest, though not in confession."
"You would!" blazed the other.
"I should do so in conscience," said the priest. "But you have not yet told me as a friend, and--"
"You mean--"
"I mean that so long as you choose to speak to me of it, now and here, it remains that I choose to regard it as _sub sigillo_ in effect. But you must not come to me to-morrow, as if I knew it all in a plain way. I do not. I know it as a priest only."
There was silence for a moment. Then Anthony stood up.
"I understand," he said. "But you would refuse me absolution in any case?"
"I could not give you absolution so long as you intended to kill her Grace."
Anthony made an impatient gesture.
"See here," he said. "Let me tell you the whole matter from the beginning. Now listen."
He settled himself again in his chair, and began.
"Robin," he said, "you remember when I spoke to you in the inn on the way to Matstead; it must be seven or eight years gone now? Well, that was when the beginning was. There was no design then, such as we have to-day; but the general purpose was there. I had spoken with man after man; I had been to France, and seen Mr. Morgan there, Queen Mary"s man, and my lord of Glasgow; and all that I spoke with seemed of one mind--except my lord of Glasgow, who did not say much to me on the matter. But all at least were agreed that there would be no peace in England so long as Elizabeth sat on the throne.
"Well: it was after that that I fell in with Ballard, who was over here on some other affair; and I found him a man of the same mind as myself; he was all agog for Mary, and seemed afraid of nothing. Well; nothing was done for a great while. He wrote to me from France; I wrote back to him again, telling him the names of some of my friends. I went to see him in France two or three times; and I saw him here, when you yourself came over with him. But we did not know whom to trust. Neither had we any special design. Her Grace of the Scots went hither and thither under strong guards; and what I had done for her before--"
Robin looked up. He was still quite pale and quite quiet.
"What was that?" he said.
Anthony again made his impatient gesture. He was fiercely excited; but kept himself under tolerable control.
"Why, I have been her agent for a great while back, getting her letters through to her, and such like. But last year, when that d.a.m.ned Sir Amyas Paulet became her gaoler, I could do nothing. Two or three times my messenger was stopped, and the letters taken from him. Well; after that time I could do no more. There her Grace was, back again at Tutbury, and none could get near her. She might no more give alms, even, to the poor; and all her letters must go through Walsingham"s hands. And then G.o.d helped us: she was taken last autumn to Chartley, near by which is the house of the Giffords; and since that time we have been almost merry. Do you know Gilbert Gifford?"
"He hath been with the Jesuits, hath he not?"
"That is the man. Well, Mr. Gilbert Gifford hath been G.o.d"s angel to us.
A quiet, still kind of a man--you have seen him?"
"I have spoken with him at Rheims," said Robin. "I know nothing of him."
"Well; he contrived the plan. He hath devised a beer-barrel that hath the beer all roundabout, so that when they push their rods in, there seems all beer within. But in the heart of the beer there is secured a little iron case; and within the iron case there is s.p.a.ce for papers.
Well, this barrel goes to and fro to Chartley and to a brewer that is a good Catholic; and within the case there are the letters. And in this way, all has been prepared--"
Robin looked up again. He remained quiet through all the story; and lifted no more than his eyes. His fingers played continually with a b.u.t.ton on his doublet.
"You mean that Queen Mary hath consented to this?"
"Why, yes!"
"To her sister"s death?"