Arthur looked at him with a mixture of admiration and uneasiness.  He hesitated awhile, and then said: 

“What think you of an instant flight?  I would help you with the best will in the world.  There is my house at Poghley open to you.  There is an excellent hiding place there.”

Again Dalaber hesitated just for a moment; but this time the hesitation lasted scarce more.

“Master Garret desired that I should fly with him, but I refused.  It came to me that I have been set here, and here will I remain.  It may be that the Lord has a testimony for us to deliver.  I am ready to leave myself in His hands.”

Arthur looked thoughtfully at him.

“I will do what I can for you, Dalaber; you may be certain of that.  But it may not be much.”

“There is one thing you can do,” cried the other quickly, with a lightening of the eyes.  “You can tell Freda all the tale, and ask her prayers for me.  Now that I am like to be a suspected person, I will no more go to her.  But tell her that, come what may, my heart will ever be hers, and that I will seek to remember her words to me.  I will strive to be faithful unto death.”

“I will tell her,” answered Arthur, not unmoved.  “But we will not think or speak of death.  Whatever may be done elsewhere, we men at Oxford have always set our faces against any bitter persecution for conscience’ sake.  Students are sent here to read, and study, and think; and if here and there be some whose speculations have led them somewhat astray, I doubt not that, when the consensus of opinion is taken, the greater number will be for using mild and gentle methods with them.  Only be not too stiff necked, good Anthony.  Do not fall into the delusion of thinking that none can be true Christians save your brethren.  Bear an open mind as well as a bold front, and I doubt not we shall weather this storm without great hurt or loss.”

“We?” questioned Dalaber, with a slight smile.  “You are not one of us, Arthur, though you show yourself the kindest of friends, and that in the days of adversity rather than of prosperity, for which the Lord will reward you.”

“I spoke the ‘we’ in the sense of another brotherhood, Anthony,” said the other, with a slightly heightened colour; “for thou art the plighted husband of Frideswyde Langton, whilst I hope soon to win the troth plight of the beauteous Magdalen.  Then shall we be brothers, thou and I, and I will play a brother’s part by thee now if thou art in danger.”

The two comrades clasped hands.  Dalaber had long known that his friend was paying court to Magdalen, though he did not know how far that suit had progressed.  But evidently Arthur did not think the time far distant when he might look upon her as his own, and his friend rejoiced with him.

Evensong at St. Frideswyde had already begun before the two friends reached the chapel, so they did not go in, but stood at the choir door, from whence they could see the dean and canons in their robes, and hear the singing, in which Dalaber had so often joined; but there was little of song in his heart just now—­only a sense of coming woe and peril.  They had scarce been there a few minutes before they beheld Dr. Cottisford coming hastily towards the place, bareheaded, and with a face pale and disturbed, so that Dalaber caught Arthur by the arm and whispered: