ere at Tyburn, too?" questioned Chris bitterly, "perhaps with
this brother of mine?"

Beatrice faced him defiantly.

"What have you to say against him, sir?"

Ralph made a movement to speak, but the girl checked him.

"I wish to hear it. What have you to say?"

"He is a creature of Cromwell's who plotted the death of God's saints.
This brother of mine was at the examinations, I hear, and at the
scaffold. Is that enough?"

Chris had himself under control again by now, but his words seemed to
burn with vitriol. His lips writhed as he spoke.

"Well?" said Beatrice.

"Well, if that is not enough; how of More and my Lord of Rochester?"

"He has been a good friend to Mr. More," said Beatrice, "that I know."

"He will get him the martyr's crown, surely," sneered Chris.

"And you have no more to say?" asked the girl quietly.

A shudder ran over the monk's body; his mouth opened and closed, and the
fire in his eyes flared up and died; his clenched hands rose and fell.
Then he spoke quietly.

"I have no more to say, madam."

Beatrice moved across to Ralph, and put her hand on his arm, looking
steadily at Chris. Ralph laid his other hand on hers a moment, then
raised it, and made an abrupt motion towards the door.

Chris went round the table; Mr. Morris opened the door with an impassive
face, and followed him out, leaving Beatrice and Ralph alone.

* * * * *

Chris had come back the previous evening from Tyburn distracted almost
to madness. He had sat heavily all the evening by himself, brooding and
miserable, and had not slept all night, but waking visions had moved
continually before his eyes, as he turned to and fro on his narrow bed
in the unfamiliar room. Again and again Tyburn was before him, peopled
with phantoms; he had seen the thick ropes, and heard their creaking,
and the murmur of the multitude; had smelt the pungent wood-smoke and
the thick drifting vapour from the cauldron. Once it seemed to him that
the very room was full of figures, white-clad and silent, who watched
him with impassive pale faces, remote and unconcerned. He had flung
himself on his knees again and again, had lashed himself with the
discipline that he, too, might taste of pain; but all the serenity of
divine things was gone. There was no heaven, no Saviour, no love. He was
bound down here, crushed and stifled in this apostate city whose sounds
and cries came up into his cell. He had lost the fiery v