hould you not visit your friends in Cambridge? It would
excite no great wonderment that you should do so. We cannot spare
you to the malice of enemies; and Garret being escaped from the
snare, there is no knowing upon whom they may next lay hands. It
would break my heart if mischance happened to you, Master Clarke;
wherefore I pray you have a care for yourself."

Clarke regarded both young men with a very tender smile.

"I think I will not go; and how can I refuse to speak with those
who come to me? The reading of the Scriptures in any tongue has not
been forbidden by the Holy Catholic Church. I will maintain that
against all adversaries. What I say here in my room I will maintain
before all men, and will show that the Lord Himself, by His holy
apostles and prophets, has taught the same. If any are in peril
through words which I have spoken, shall I flee away and leave them
to do battle alone? Nay; but I will remain here and be found at my
post. My conscience is clear before God and man. I have not
disobeyed His voice nor yet that of the Catholic Church. Let Him
judge betwixt us. I am in His hands. I am not afraid what man can
do unto me."

Dalaber's face kindled at the sound of these words, and the flame
of his enthusiasm for this man blazed up afresh. There had been
times when he had fancied that Garret possessed the stronger
spirit, because his words were more full of fire, and he was ever a
man of action and strife. But when Garret had been brought face to
face with peril his nerve had given way. He had struggled after
courage, but all the while he had been ready to fly. He had spoken
of coming martyrdom with loftiness of resolution; but he had
wavered, and had been persuaded that the time had not yet come.

Something in Clarke's gentle steadfastness seemed loftier to
Anthony Dalaber than what he had witnessed in Garret a few days
back. Yet he would have said that Garret would have flown in the
face of danger without a fear, whilst Clarke would have hung back
and sought to find a middle course.

"But if these meetings be perilous," urged Arthur, "why will you
not let them drop--for the sake of others, if not your own?"

He looked calmly in the questioner's eyes as he answered:

"I invite no man to come to me to read or discourse. If any so
come, I warn them that there may be peril for them; and many I have
thus sent away, for they have not desired to run into any peril.
Those who gather round me here are my