Was Anthony among them?  She held her breath in a sickening suspense, scarce knowing whether or not she longed to see him.  She knew almost each face as it loomed up into view:  there was young Fitzjames, their kinsman, looking shame-faced but submissive; there were Udel and Diet, Bayley, Cox, and others whom she had never suspected of having been concerned in the movement; and there, almost at the rear of the long procession, walked Anthony Dalaber, his dark, thin face looking worn and haggard, his hair tumbled and unkempt, his dark eyes bent upon the ground, his feet slow and lagging, but whether from weakness or unwillingness she was not able to say.  She held her breath to watch him as he appeared.  She saw the heavy frown upon his brow; she marked the change which had come over him—­the cloud which seemed to envelop him.  She knew that he was bowed to the ground with shame and humiliation, and with that sort of fierce despair of which she had seen glimpses in his nature before now.

Suddenly all the old tenderness rushed over her as in a flood.  She forgot her sense of disappointment in his lack of firmness; she forgot how he had boasted of his courage and devotion, and how, in the time of temptation and trial, he had let himself be persuaded to take the easier path; she forgot all save that he had loved her, and that she had loved him, and that love can surmount all things, because its essence is divine.  If he had fallen, he had suffered keenly.  Suffering was stamped upon every line of his face.

Was not God’s love for sinners so great that before the world repented of its wickedness He gave His Son to die for an atonement and expiation?  Must we then not love those who err, and who repent of their weakness?  Nay, are we not all sinners, all weak, all frail and feeble beings in weak mortal bodies?  Shall we judge and condemn one another?  Shall we not rather seek to strengthen one another by love and tenderness, and so lead one another onward in the way which leads to life everlasting?

These thoughts rushed like a flood through Freda’s mind as she watched through a mist of tears the throwing of the fagots and the books upon the fire at Carfax.  Three times did the penitents walk round the fire, the bells tolling, and the crowd observing an intense silence, as the servants handed to the young men books from the baskets to fling upon the fire.

Only one was given to Anthony, and he gave one quick glance before he threw it into the heart of the blaze.  Arthur Cole had been as good as his word.  It was no portion of God’s Word that he was condemned to burn, but a pamphlet of peculiar bitterness by one of the foreign reformers.

Then the procession formed up again, and started for its final goal; and Freda, rising, laid her hand upon her father’s arm and said: 

“Take me home, I prithee, sweet father—­take me home first.  I have seen enough.  I would now go home.  And then, when all is over, go thou to St. Frideswyde and bring Anthony to me.”