“Then let him take me in lieu of Master Clarke!” suddenly cried Dalaber, stepping forward to the cardinal’s table, upon which he leaned with both his hands, and his dark eyes flashed fire.  “If he must have a victim, let me be that victim.  I am tenfold more heretic than Master Clarke.  Let me take his place in the foul dungeon; let me, if need be, go to the stake for him.  If there must be a victim, let me be that victim; but shall he die whose life has been given for the purity of the faith, and for teaching that very doctrine of the unity of the one Holy Catholic Church upon which your Eminence laid such stress in speaking awhile ago?  Give me up to the mercy of the bishop, and let Clarke go free!”

The piercing gaze of the cardinal was fixed upon Dalaber’s strenuous face.  All weakness had vanished from it now.  It was full of passionate earnestness and dauntless courage.  His dark eyes met those of Wolsey without fear or shrinking.  The loftiness of a great resolve, a great sacrifice, was shining in them.

“I will consider this matter, my sons,” spoke the cardinal, whose face softened as he gazed first at one young man and then at the other.  “I must communicate with the bishop, and I will see you again.  Fortunately he is not far from London.  A messenger can quickly reach him.  Come to me here in four days’ time, and I will see you again and perchance give you an answer.  Will your mind have changed in those days, Anthony Dalaber?  Do you indeed mean the things that you have said?”

“I do,” he answered quietly, and added no protestations.

“I will remember,” spoke the cardinal; and rising to his feet he gave to Arthur the benediction for which he bent his knee.

Dalaber hesitated for a moment, and then he too knelt.  There was no hypocrisy in this act.  Something in the aspect and the words of the cardinal had changed his opinion of the man during the brief interview.

“The Lord bless thee, my son,” spoke the priest solemnly.  “The Lord give thee grace and discernment, wisdom and light.  The Lord strengthen all that is good in thee, that it may live and grow, and cast out and uproot all that may become a stumbling block or root of bitterness within thee.  The Lord give to thee the understanding mind, the childlike heart, the pure spirit of the children of light, and lead and guide thee into all truth.  Amen.”

The two companions went quietly from the room, and through the long and stately passages, where the worldly pomp visible had stirred in Dalaber on entering a sense of incongruity and almost of contempt.

But he did not think of these things as he walked out into the sunny street; and both had got far upon the road to their lodgings, hard by Moor Fields, ere either spoke a word.

“I trow he will do it,” then said Arthur, drawing a long breath.

“You think so truly?”