ten o'clock
Robin had learned previously how strict was the watch set about the Queen 's person , particularly since the news of the Babington plot had first reached the authorities , and of the extraordinary difficulty to the approach of any stranger to her presence . Nau and Curle , her two secretaries , had been arrested and perhaps racked a week or ten days before ; all the Queen 's papers had been taken from her , and even her jewellery and pictures sent off to Elizabeth ; and the only persons ordinarily allowed to speak with her , besides her gaoler , were two of her women , and Mr. Bourgoign himself . That morning then , before six o'clock , Robin had said mass in the sick woman 's room and given her communion , with her companion , who answered his mass , as it was thought more prudent that the other priest should not even be present ; and , at the close of the mass he had reserved in a little pyx , hidden beneath his clothes , a consecrated particle . Mr. Bourgoign had said that he would see to it that the Queen should be fasting up to ten o'clock that day . And now the last miracle had been accomplished . A servant had come down late the night before , with a discreet letter from the apothecary , saying that Sir Amyas had consented to receive and examine for himself the travelling physician from Paris ; and here now went Robin , striving to remember the old Latin names he had learned as a boy , and to carry a medical air with him . * * * * * The parlour in which he found himself was furnished severely and even rather sparely , owing , perhaps , he thought , to the temporary nature of the household .