and of the church, that I would hold his errors lightly and his graces and gifts in esteem.  But alas! the bishop has heard much about his readings and his expounding of the Scriptures.  He vows that he and Garret and the monk Ferrar have been the ringleaders in all this trouble, and that, unless they formally recant and join in this act of open submission, they shall be dealt with as obstinate heretics, and handed over to the secular arm, to perish by fire.”

Arthur’s face grew suddenly pale to the lips.

“They would burn a saint like Clarke!  God forgive them even for such a thought!  Truly men may say—­”

Dr. Higdon raised his hand to stop Arthur’s words, but his face was full of distress and sympathy.

“We will trust and hope that such a fearful consummation will not be necessary.  The others have submitted; and Clarke is but a shadow of himself, owing to the unwholesome nature of the place in which he is confined.  I do not despair yet of bringing him to reason and submission.  He is not like Dalaber.  There is no stubbornness about him.  He will speak with sweet courtesy, and enter into every argument with all the reasonableness of a great mind.  But he says that to walk in that procession, to take part in that act of so-called recantation and reconciliation, would be in itself as a confession that those things which he had held and taught were heretical.  And no argument will wring that admission from him.  He declares—­and truly his arguments are sound and cogent—­that he has never spoken or taught any single doctrine which was not taught by our Lord and His apostles and is not held by the Catholic Church.  And in vain do I quote to him the mandates of various Popes and prelates.  His answer ever is that, though he gives all reverence to God’s ministers and ordained servants in the church, it must ever be to the Head that he looks for final judgment on all difficult points, and he cannot regard any bishop in the church—­not even the Bishop of Rome—­as being of greater authority than the Lord.

“It is here that his case is so hopeless.  To subvert the authority of the Pope is to shake the church to her foundations.  But nothing I say can make Clarke understand this.  It is the one point upon which he is obstinately heretical.”

“But you still have hopes of inducing him to submit?”

“I shall not cease my efforts, or cease to hope,” answered Dr. Higdon earnestly, “for in truth I know not what will be the end if he remain obstinate or, rather, I fear too much what that end will be.  If it lay with the cardinal, there would be hope; but the bishop is obdurate.  He is resolved to proceed to the uttermost lengths.  Pray Heaven Clarke may yet see the folly of remaining obstinate, and may consent at the last to submit as the others have done!”

“Have all done so?”