d and hung with
tapestries from floor to ceiling. A second door opened beyond, in the
window side, into another room. A round table stood in the centre, with
brocaded chairs about it, and a long couch by the fireplace. Opposite
rose up the tall windows through which shone the bright river with the
trees and buildings on the north bank beyond.

They had hardly spoken a word to one another since they had left
Charing, for all that was possible had been said during the weeks of
waiting for the Archbishop's summons.

Cranmer had received them kindly, though he had not committed himself
beyond promising to introduce them to the King, and had expressed no
opinion on the case.

He had listened to them courteously, had nodded quietly as Chris
explained what it was that Ralph had done, and then almost without
comment had given his promise. It seemed as if the Archbishop could not
even form an opinion, and still less express one, until he had heard
what his Highness had to say.

* * * * *

Chris walked to the window and the lawyer followed him.

"Placentia!" said Mr. Herries, "I do not wonder at it. It is even more
pleasing from within."

He stood, a prim, black figure, looking out at the glorious view, the
shining waterway studded with spots of colour, the long bank of the
river opposite, and the spires of London city lying in a blue heat-haze
far away to the left.

Chris stared at it too, but with unseeing eyes. It seemed as if all
power of sensation had left him. The suspense of the last weeks had
corroded the surfaces of his soul, and the intensity to which it was now
rising seemed to have paralysed what was left. He found himself
picturing the little house at Charing where Beatrice was waiting, and,
he knew, praying; and he reminded himself that the next time he saw her
he would know all, whether death or life was to be Ralph's sentence. The
solemn quiet and the air of rich and comfortable tranquillity which the
palace wore, and which had impressed itself on his mind even in the
hundred yards he had walked in it, gave him an added sense of what it
was that lay over his brother, the huge passionless forces with which he
had become entangled.

Then he turned round. His father was sitting at the table, his head on
his hand; and Nicholas was staring round the grave room with the
solemnity of a child, looking strangely rustic and out of place in these
surroundings.

It was very quiet a