h through the golden green of
the beech avenue, Magdalen flew, as it were, to meet her twin, and
the sisters were clasped in each other's arms. Arthur was not far
behind his fleet-footed spouse, and was clasping hands with
Dalaber, and gazing long and searchingly into his face.

"Welcome, my friend, welcome!" he said. "It is good to see you
stand a free man once more. You have suffered, Anthony; I can see
it all too clearly in your face. But I trust that the dark days are
over now, and that better times are in store. In the sweet security
of home we will seek to forget those trials and troubles which have
gone before."

Dalaber looked round him at the awakening beauty of the springtide
world, and a lump seemed to rise in his throat. His face contracted
as though with a spasm of pain, and he spoke in sharpened accents
of suffering.

"The world of nature looks--thus--to me. And Master Clarke lies
rotting in a foul prison, in peril of his life both from sickness
and from the cruel malice of the bishop. How can I forget? How can
I be happy? Methinks sometimes I would he more truly happy were I
lying beside him there."

Arthur drew Dalaber a little away from the rest.

"Have you had news of him?"

"Such news as might be had. Some of the brethren, if they can still
be so called, when they are as sheep scattered without a
shepherd--some of them came to bid me adieu and speak comforting
words. I asked them one and all of him, our beloved teacher; but
none had seen him--only they had one and all made inquiry after
him, and one had heard this, and the other that. But all affirmed
that he, together with Sumner and Radley, was lying in a foul
prison, sick unto death with the fever that besets those who lie
too long in these noisome holes, or, as some said, with the
sweating sickness, which has shown itself once more in Oxford.

"But since he refused to take part in the scene at Carfax, and as
his companions were firm as himself, they are kept yet in the same
foul place. And if help come not they will certainly die; for how
can men recover of sickness without some care, or tendance, or
better nourishment than will be given them there? Ah, it makes my
blood boil to think of it!"

It was almost impossible for Dalaber to rejoice in his own freedom
and in the beauty of all about him, so woeful were his thoughts
about this man whom he so greatly loved. He went to his room that
night, but sleep came not to him. He paced to and