He had submitted to the imposed penance, having, indeed, no very strong opinions of his own upon controverted subjects, though he had heard much, and received the new doctrines with open mind.  But now he felt as though he hated the rulers of the church with a deep and implacable hatred.  His boyhood seemed to have passed away from him during those weeks of harsh imprisonment; and he came forth a man, with a stern hatred of bigotry and intolerance, with no formulated plan of action or resistance, with no very definite opinions as to doctrine or dogma, but with a fixed resolve to cast in his lot with those who were fighting for liberty of conscience, or liberty in any form, and with a strong hope that he might live to see the day when he should break a lance for the cause he had espoused.

It was indeed too often that men’s hearts were filled with bitterness, and that those in places of power and authority made themselves bitter enemies, even of those towards whom they were kindly disposed; whilst the day was coming slowly but surely when they were to reap what they had sown.

It was a soft and radiant evening when Freda and her father and Dalaber rode slowly through the gates which led to the moated manor where Arthur Cole and his bride awaited them.  Fitzjames and a few others were to follow.  But these three, with a couple of servants, arrived first; and upon their approach through the golden green of the beech avenue, Magdalen flew, as it were, to meet her twin, and the sisters were clasped in each other’s arms.  Arthur was not far behind his fleet-footed spouse, and was clasping hands with Dalaber, and gazing long and searchingly into his face.

“Welcome, my friend, welcome!” he said.  “It is good to see you stand a free man once more.  You have suffered, Anthony; I can see it all too clearly in your face.  But I trust that the dark days are over now, and that better times are in store.  In the sweet security of home we will seek to forget those trials and troubles which have gone before.”

Dalaber looked round him at the awakening beauty of the springtide world, and a lump seemed to rise in his throat.  His face contracted as though with a spasm of pain, and he spoke in sharpened accents of suffering.

“The world of nature looks—­thus—­to me.  And Master Clarke lies rotting in a foul prison, in peril of his life both from sickness and from the cruel malice of the bishop.  How can I forget?  How can I be happy?  Methinks sometimes I would he more truly happy were I lying beside him there.”

Arthur drew Dalaber a little away from the rest.

“Have you had news of him?”

“Such news as might be had.  Some of the brethren, if they can still be so called, when they are as sheep scattered without a shepherd—­some of them came to bid me adieu and speak comforting words.  I asked them one and all of him, our beloved teacher; but none had seen him—­only they had one and all made inquiry after him, and one had heard this, and the other that.  But all affirmed that he, together with Sumner and Radley, was lying in a foul prison, sick unto death with the fever that besets those who lie too long in these noisome holes, or, as some said, with the sweating sickness, which has shown itself once more in Oxford.