dreaming?"

"I am not dreaming at all. I come from the Dean of Cardinal
College, and from Master Garret, whom he has there in ward, but who
is also to be released at the same time. I was permitted speech
with him, that I might bring word to you, and that you might know
in very truth what was about to happen."

"And what is that? Speak!" cried Anthony, who was shaking all over
like an aspen.

To some temperaments hope and joy are almost more difficult to bear
than the blows of adverse fortune. Had the commissary come with
news that Dalaber was to suffer death for his faith, he would not
have found him so full of tremors, so breathless and shaken.

"I have come to speak," answered Arthur kindly, as he seated
himself upon the low pallet bed, and made Dalaber sit beside him.
"It is in this wise, Anthony. When you and your comrades were
taken, the heads and authorities were in great fear that all Oxford
was infect and corrupt by some pestilent heresy; but having found
and carefully questioned the young men of their faith, and having
read your confession, and heard more truly what hath been the
teaching they have heard and received, they find nothing greatly
amiss, and are now as anxious to deal gently and tenderly with you
all as at first they were hot to punish with severity. Had they the
power to do as they would, you might all be sent speedily to your
homes; but they have to satisfy the cardinal, and, worse still, the
bishop, and hence there must somewhat be done ere peace be
restored, to assure him that Oxford is purged and clean."

"And what will they do?" asked Dalaber, who was still quivering in
every nerve.

"Marry, nothing so very harsh or stern," answered Arthur, who was
feeling his way carefully, trying to combine truth and policy, but
erring distinctly on the side of the latter. "But those later books
which were found in your hiding place and Radley's room, which are
more dangerous and subversive than any that have gone before, are
to be cast solemnly out of the place; and, in truth, I think with
cause. See, I have brought you one or two to look at, to show you
how even Martin Luther contradicts himself and blasphemes. How can
the Spirit of God be in a man who will say such contrary things at
different times?"

And Arthur showed to Anthony a few marked passages in certain
treatises, in which the reformer, as was so often the case in his
voluminous and hastily-conceived and written works, had flatly
co