r. "You seem to me to have regained
all your old grip on things--and in some points to have more than
regained it. I have written to Rome----" (he broke off).

"It's the details that still trouble me, your Eminence. For
instance, in this heresy-trial, I cannot remember the procedure,
or the penalties, or anything else."

"That'll all come back," smiled the Cardinal. "After all, the
principles are the point. Well, I mustn't detain you. You're to
be at Westminster at twelve."

"Yes, your Eminence. We've nearly finished now. The monks are
very well satisfied. But the main body of them do not come to
Westminster until they formally re-enter. Cardinal Campello has
written to say that he will be with us on the 20th for certain."

"That is very good. . . . Then good morning, Monsignor."

(II)

It was nearly midnight before Monsignor Masterman pushed away the
book that lay before him and leaned back in his chair. He felt
sick and dazed at what he had read.

First, he had studied with extreme care the constitution of the
Heresy-Court, and had sent off a couple of hours ago the formal
letters to the Dominican Provincial and two other priests whom he
had selected. Then he had studied the procedure of the court, and
the penalties assigned.

At first he could not believe what he read. He had turned more
than once to the title-page of the great quarto, thinking that he
must find it to be a reprint of some medieval work. But the title
was unmistakable. The book was printed in Rome in the spring of
the present year, and contained an English supplement, dealing
with the actual relations of the Church laws with those of the
country. There were minor penalties for minor offences; there was
at every turn an escape for the accused. He might, even in the
last event, escape all penalties by a formal renouncement of
Christianity; but if not, if he persisted simultaneously in
claiming a place in the Church of Christ and in holding to a
theological opinion declared erroneous by the Court of Appeal
ratified by the Pope, he was to be handed over to the secular
arm; and by the laws of England--as well as of every other
European country except Germany--the penalty inflicted by the
secular arm was, in the instance of a tonsured clerk, death.

It was this that staggered the priest.

Somewhere within him there rose up a protest so overwhelmingly
strong as to evade even an attempt at deliberate analysis--a
protest that rested on the a