f this cannot be, then make choice
of some one of the Society, as you shall like, which I am sure will be
granted you. If you like to go over, stay at Saint Omer, and send for
Friar Baldwin, with whom consult where to live: but I think Saint Omer
less healthy than Brussels. In respect of your weakness, I think it
better for you to live abroad, and not in a monastery. Your vow of
obedience, being made to the Superior of the Mission here, when you are
over, ceaseth: and then may you consult how to make it again. None of
the Society can accept a vow of obedience of any; but any one may vow as
he will, and then one of the Society may direct accordingly."

Garnet proceeds to say that the vow of poverty was to cease in like
manner, and might be similarly renewed. "All that which is for
annuities" he had always meant to be hers, in the hope that she would
afterwards leave it to the Jesuit Mission: but she is at liberty, if she
wish it, to alienate a third of this, or if she should desire at any
time to "retire into religion,"--i.e., to become a nun--and require a
portion, she is to help herself freely. He "thanks God most humbly that
in all his speeches and practices he has had a desire to do nothing
against the glory of God." He was so much annoyed by having been
misunderstood by the two spies that he "thought it would make our
actions much more excusable to tell the truth, than to stand to the
torture, or trial by witnesses." As to his acquaintance with the plot,
he sought to hinder it more than men can imagine, as the Pope can tell:
how could he have dissuaded the conspirators if he had absolutely known
nothing? But he thought it not allowable to tell what he knew. None of
them ever told him anything, though they used his name freely--he
implies, more freely than truth justified them in doing: "yet have I
hurt nobody." He ordered the removal of certain books which he does not
further describe; if they be found, "you can challenge them as your own,
as in truth they are." He will "die not as a victorious martyr, but as
a penitent thief:" but "let God work His will." The most touching words
are the last. Up to this point, the spiritual director has been
addressing his subject. Now the priest disappears, and the man's heart
breaks out.

"Howsoever I shall die a thief, yet you may assure yourself your
innocence is such, that but if you die by reason of your imprisonment,
you shall die a martyr. [From this point