e not all sinners, all weak, all frail
and feeble beings in weak mortal bodies? Shall we judge and condemn
one another? Shall we not rather seek to strengthen one another by
love and tenderness, and so lead one another onward in the way
which leads to life everlasting?

These thoughts rushed like a flood through Freda's mind as she
watched through a mist of tears the throwing of the fagots and the
books upon the fire at Carfax. Three times did the penitents walk
round the fire, the bells tolling, and the crowd observing an
intense silence, as the servants handed to the young men books from
the baskets to fling upon the fire.

Only one was given to Anthony, and he gave one quick glance before
he threw it into the heart of the blaze. Arthur Cole had been as
good as his word. It was no portion of God's Word that he was
condemned to burn, but a pamphlet of peculiar bitterness by one of
the foreign reformers.

Then the procession formed up again, and started for its final
goal; and Freda, rising, laid her hand upon her father's arm and
said:

"Take me home, I prithee, sweet father--take me home first. I have
seen enough. I would now go home. And then, when all is over, go
thou to St. Frideswyde and bring Anthony to me."

Chapter XVI: "Reconciled"

Anthony sat with his face buried in his hands, in an attitude of
profound dejection. He was gaunt and haggard and worn to a shadow,
and Freda's gentle, pitying gaze held in its depths nothing but
love and tender compassion.

The first rapture of meeting once again had passed. The exultant
joy engendered by a sense of freedom had lasted for several hours.
Anthony had laughed and sung aloud and shouted for joy in the shady
alleys of the garden, amid all the blissful sights and sounds of
springtide. He had wandered there with Freda beside him in a sort
of trance of happiness, in which all else had been forgotten. The
joy to both had been so keen, so exquisite, that it had sufficed
them for the present.

But with the falling of the softened dusk, with the setting of the
sun, with the natural and inevitable reaction upon an enfeebled
body and sensitive spirit, following upon a severe and protracted
strain, Dalaber's spirits had suddenly left him. An intense
depression both of body and mind had followed, and in the gathering
twilight of that familiar room he sat in an attitude of profound
dejection, whilst Freda scarce knew whether it were better to seek
to find word