in you," he said, in
his low, earnest voice, "and give to us all the strength to bear
the cross which He may see good to lay upon us!"

He paced with bent head along the walk, and vanished through the
door by which he had come. Freda, with trembling hands, tore open
the packet she had all this while been holding tightly clasped
between them, and when she saw its contents the tears gushed forth.

She sank down upon the seat in the arbour, and the little,
well-worn book fell open at a place where the page had been turned
down. It was that chapter in St. Matthew which Anthony had been
reading after the departure of Garret, and the sisters devoured the
words together, both deeply moved.

"O Magda, Magda, how can I bear it?" cried Freda, laying her head
upon her sister's shoulder; "I had thought to be so brave, so
steadfast. We have spoken of it, and I had thought that in a
righteous cause it would not be hard to suffer. And, in sooth, I
verily believe I could suffer mine own self. But I cannot bear for
him to be alone--for him to have so much laid upon him. O my
Anthony! my Anthony!"

"And it is so little they ask, so little they hold; and our beloved
Master Clarke maintains that the true Catholic Church has forbidden
naught that they would fain see restored--only the liberty to read
and study the living Word for themselves. They are not rebels; they
are not heretics. They love the church, and they are her true sons.
Only they maintain that some errors have crept in of man's
devising, for which no Scripture warrant can be found; and they
know that corruption hath entered even into the sanctuary, and they
would fain see it cleansed. Is that sin? Is that heresy? Then
methinks our Lord must needs have been a heretic and sinner (if it
be not blasphemy to say it), for He would not suffer His Father's
house to be polluted nor made a den of thieves. And what else do
these godly men ask now than that the Christian Church shall be
purified and cleansed of merchandise and barter, and become again a
holy house of prayer, undisturbed by any such things?"

Magdalen had been one of those who had most earnestly drunk in the
teachings of such men as Clarke, who combined an intense and
devoted love of Holy Church with an ardent desire after a purer
spiritual administration. His words to her soul were as words of
life; and one of the things which had first attracted her to Arthur
Cole, and become a bond of sympathy between them, was t