uld be permitted to remain.

Dalaber sprang up from the stone bench on which he had been sitting
in a dejected attitude, and when he saw the face of his friend he
uttered an exclamation of joy.

"Arthur! you have come to me! Nay, but this is a true friend's
part. Art sure it is safe to do so? Thou must not run thine own
neck into a noose on my account. But oh, how good it is to see the
face of a friend!"

He seized Arthur's two hands, wringing them in a clasp that was
almost pain, and his face worked with emotion.

Arthur, as his eyes grew used to the darkness, was shocked at the
change which a week had wrought in his friend. Dalaber's face
seemed to have shrunk in size, the eyes had grown large and hollow,
his colour had all faded, and he looked like a man who had passed
through a sharp illness.

"What have they done to you, Anthony, thus to change you?" cried
Arthur, in concern.

"Oh, nothing, as yet. I have but sat in the stocks two days, till
they sent me for closer ward hither. After Master Garret's escape
bolts and bars have not been thought secure enough out of the
prison house. But every time the bolt shoots back I think that it
may be the men come to take me to the Tower. They have threatened
to send me thither to be racked, and afterwards to be burnt. If it
must come to that, pray Heaven it come quickly. It is worse to sit
here thinking and picturing it all than to know the worst has come
at last."

His hands were hot, and the pulses throbbed. Arthur could see the
shining of the dilated eyes. Dalaber's vivid imagination had been a
rather terrible companion for him during these days of darkness and
solitude. The authorities had shown some shrewd knowledge of human
nature when they had shut him up alone. Some of the culprits had
been housed together in the prison, but Dalaber had been quite
solitary.

It was not so evil a cell that he occupied as some of the others.
Arthur's gold had prevailed thus far. But nothing could save him
from the horrors of utter loneliness, and these had told upon him
more than greater hardships would have done, had they been shared
with others. It had been characteristic of Dalaber all through his
life that he could be more courageous and steadfast for others than
for himself.

"Tush, Anthony! There will be no more such talk now," answered
Arthur, with a laugh. "They have found out for themselves all that
you withheld. They have laid by the heels enough victims to satisf