So now he looked compassionately into Clarke’s face and said: 

“I fear me they will not do so.  I have done what I can; but they will not listen.  None may dare to bring it to you until the ban of the church be taken off.”

Clarke looked into his face at first with a pained expression, but gradually a great light kindled in his eyes.  He half rose from the couch on which he was lying, and he stretched forth his hands as though he were receiving something into them.  Then looking upwards, he spoke—­spoke with a greater strength than he had done for many days—­and a vivid smile illuminated his face.  They were all standing about him, for they knew the end was near, and they all saw and heard.

“Crede et manducasti,” he said; and then, with a yet more vivid illumination of his features, he added in a whisper, “My Lord and my God!”

Then he fell back, and with that smile of triumph upon his face, passed away.

Over his remains, which were permitted to lie in consecrated ground, they set up a white cross; and beneath his name were the words: 

“Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”

Notes

[i] “Believe, and thou hast eaten.”  Words often used by the early “heretics,” who were debarred from partaking of the feast of Holy Communion.

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