“Is only Clarke coming hither?” he asked.  “What of Sumner and Radley who were with him in prison?”

Dr. Langton paused a brief while before answering, and then he said in a low and moved voice: 

“Radley was scarce alive when we came to them.  They were all taken to the Bridge House, where we had made preparation to receive them.  But he died within a few hours.  I scarce know whether he did really understand that liberty had come at last.  On the morning of the second day Sumner died, and we thought that Clarke was lying in articulo mortis; but I tried in his case a certain drug, the use of which I have only recently discovered, whereupon he fell into a quiet, natural sleep, and the fever began to leave him.  There is much sickness again in the town, and it seemed to me well that, if he could bear removal, he should be taken where stronger and purer air could be breathed.

“Yesterday, very early in the morning, we started forth.  Arthur had had an easy litter constructed under his own eyes, which can be slung between two horses walking gently and evenly.  In this way we have brought him.  In another hour he should be here.  I wish to make ready some large and airy chamber that opens direct upon the garden, where he can be carried daily to inhale the scents of the flowers and be enwrapped by the sunshine.  If there be a chance of recovery—­”

Dr. Langton stopped short, and Magdalen looked earnestly into his face.  She read his thoughts there.

“You think he will die?”

“I fear so.  I misdoubt me if there can be any rally.  And in truth, my child”—­he drew Magdalen gently onwards with him towards the room which he had fixed upon in his own mind as the one most suited to his purpose—­“in truth, I know not if it were true kindness to seek to save that stainless life.  I had speech with Dr. Higdon anent this very matter only the night before we started forth, and he told me that, albeit the bishop had been persuaded by the cardinal to permit the release of the prisoners for the present, yet that, should any recover—­and in particular, Master Clarke—­he was like to demand his surrender later into his own merciless hands; and it is well known that he has said that, since Wolsey would not burn Garret or Ferrar when he had them in his clutches, be would burn Clarke so soon as he was able to stand his trial.  Some even say that he only suffered the men to be released from prison that Clarke should be sufficiently recovered to perish at the stake.”

Magdalen shuddered and hid her face in her hands.

“Oh that such things should be!  And in a Christian land, and within the very Church of Christ itself!”

“We will trust it is not true,” spoke Dr. Langton gravely, “or that more Christian and more merciful counsel may prevail.  But in all truth I know full well that, short of a miracle, Clarke will only come here to die.  Perhaps the best that we can wish for him now is a peaceful and painless passing away in the midst of his friends, with no more fears of prison or martyrdom before his eyes; for in sooth I think his soul has soared into a region where all fear and anxiety are left behind.”