, torn sleeve.

Then the monk stood up and saw those kindly proud eyes looking into his
own.

The Prior made a deferential movement and said a word or two, and the
bishop answered him.

"Yes, yes, my Lord Prior; I understand--God bless you, my son."

The bishop moved across to the chair, and sat down, panting a little,
for he was torn by sickness and deprivation, and laid his long hands
together.

"Sit down, brother," he said, "and you too, my Lord Prior."

Chris saw the Prior move across to an old broken stool, but he himself
remained standing, awed and almost terrified at that worn face in which
the eyes alone seemed living; so thin that the cheekbones stood out
hideously, and the line of the square jaw. But the voice was wonderfully
sweet and penetrating.

"My Lord Prior and I have been talking of the times, and what is best to
be done, and how we must all be faithful. You will be faithful,
brother?"

Chris made an effort against the absorbing fascination of that face and
voice.

"I will, my lord."

"That is good; you must follow your prior and be obedient to him. You
will find him wise and courageous."

The bishop nodded gently towards the Prior, and Chris heard a sobbing
indrawn breath from the corner where the broken stool stood.

"It is a time of great moment," went on the bishop; "much hangs on how
we carry ourselves. His Grace has evil counsellors about him."

There was silence for a moment or two; Chris could not take his eyes
from the bishop's face. The frightful framework of skin and bones seemed
luminous from within, and there was an extraordinary sweetness on those
tightly drawn lips, and in the large bright eyes.

"His Grace has been to the Tower lately, I hear, and once to the
Marshalsea, to see Dom Sebastian Newdegate, who, as you know, was at
Court for many years till he entered the Charterhouse; but I have had no
visit from him, nor yet, I should think, Master More--you must not judge
his Grace too hardly, my son; he was a good lad, as I knew very well--a
very gallant and brave lad. A Frenchman said that he seemed to have come
down from heaven. And he has always had a great faith and devotion, and
a very strange and delicate conscience that has cost him much pain. But
he has been counselled evilly."

Chris remembered as in a dream that the bishop had been the King's tutor
years before.

"He is a good theologian too," went on the bishop, "and that is his
misfortune now, though I n