Robin had come to Booth's Edge at the beginning of Passion week, and had
been there ever since. He had refrained, at Marjorie's entreaty, from
speaking of her to her parents; and they, too, ruled by their daughter,
had held their tongues on the matter. Everything else, however, had
been discussed--the effect of the squire's apostasy, the alternatives
that presented themselves to the boy, the future behaviour of him to his
father--all these things had been spoken of; and even the priest called
into council during the last two or three days. Yet not much had come of
it. If the worst came to the worst, the lawyer had offered the boy a
place in his office; Anthony Babington had proposed his coming to
Dethick if his father turned him out; while Robin himself inclined to a
third alternative--the begging of his father to give him a sum of money
and be rid of him; after which he proposed, with youthful vagueness, to
set off for London and see what he could do there.

Marjorie, however, had seemed strangely uninterested in such proposals.
She had listened with patience, bowing her head in assent to each,
beginning once or twice a word of criticism, and stopping herself before
she had well begun. But she had looked at Robin with more than interest;
and her mother had found her more than once on her knees in her own
chamber, in tears. Yet she had said nothing, except that she would speak
her mind after Easter, perhaps.

And now, it seemed, she was doing it.

* * * * *

"You have had no other thought?" she said again, "besides those of which
you talked with my father?"