"Has Sir Christopher Neville left us also?" asked Mary Brent, as Father White came down from Cecil's room and joined her and Elinor at the fire.
"Ay," answered Mary Brent; "I cannot make out why Giles hath taken such a liking to him. To me he seems proud and reserved, with something in his tone that suggests that he is turning the company into a jest. For myself I did not see anything droll in his story of the fried whetstone."
"If every man were condemned that told a tale in which others could see nothing droll, we should need a Tyburn Hill here in Maryland."
"Ay, but what's the use of telling a droll story if it be not droll? I do not understand Sir Christopher."
It was Father White who spoke, and his shrewd gray eyes were fixed upon Elinor, who turned to the fire without a word.
Mary Brent sat tapping her foot on the floor.
"'Tis strange he should have left without a word," she said at last.
"Never fear, Mary! We have not lost him. He is too large to be mislaid like a parcel. He did but go out to fulfil a behest of mine, and if Father White understands him, as he says he does, he will have divined that it was an errand of courtesy and good-will on which he set out."
A silence fell on the group. Then Father White, looking out, exclaimed: "'Tis a bitter night and the snow is falling again! No wonder the settlers grumble over such a winter in this land where they were promised all sunshine and flowers."
"Yes," said Mary Brent. "If the weather is to be like this, we might as well have settled on the bleak Massachusetts coast."
"It cannot last long. The natives all say they never knew such a season. They fear to go abroad at night, there are so many half-starved wild beasts prowling around."
Elinor rose and began to pace the floor uneasily.
"But," continued Father White, "there are more reasons than those of climate for preferring Maryland to Massachusetts. How wouldst thou have prospered in a Puritan colony?"
"I trust even there I should have been true to Mother Church, and perchance converted some of the heretics from the error of their ways."
"Yet," interrupted Elinor, "they too are serving God in their own way."
Mary Brent shook her head. "I care not to talk of them. In truth had I known this Neville was a Protestant, I had never urged him for thy tenant at Robin Hood's Barn."