ace. I do truly see
and believe that. Yet if He command me to speak or to do that which
men will call heresy and sin, He will give me grace to stand firm,
even unto death."

Arthur was silent awhile. In his heart he scarcely believed that
the cardinal would offer up Anthony Dalaber to the tender mercies
of the implacable bishop; yet there was no knowing. The great man
had evidently been struck by the personality and history of the
young graduate, and it was possible he might recognize in him a
type of character which might prove dangerous and subversive to the
existing order of things. It was an anxious time for Arthur--more
anxious, as it seemed, than for Anthony, who remained all the while
very calm and tranquil, much occupied in reading and prayer, and
very constant in his attendance at the various churches in the
great city.

Having been for long debarred from taking part in public worship,
it seemed a great refreshment of spirit for him to do so now.
Arthur generally accompanied him; but often he rose quite early,
and slipped out alone for some morning Mass, and came back with his
face aglow with the mystic devotion in which he had been engaged.

"Call that man a heretic!" thought Arthur, as he watched and marked
him; and he little knew that he was not the only man dogging
Dalaber's footsteps in those days. The cardinal had his own methods
and his own carefully-trained servants, and not a thing that either
young man did in those few days was unknown to Wolsey in his
sumptuous palace, with the affairs of the kingdom and of other
realms more or less pressing upon his attention.

On the appointed day they again appeared before him in his closet,
and he received them with an urbanity which sat graciously upon his
rather austere person.

"I have made inquiry concerning the matter upon which you came to
me, my sons," he said, "and to my sorrow and regret I find that you
spoke only too truly as to the condition into which the unwholesome
state of their prison has reduced those three men. I have therefore
prevailed with the bishop to permit them to be delivered to their
friends.

"And if you, Master Cole, who are well known in Oxford, will make
personal application to the dean of the college, he will give you
the needful authority for obtaining possession of the persons of
the prisoners, who will be released and placed under your care. All
that will be demanded of you, or of their friends, is that you will
take c