ou spoken such words?" he cried, almost fiercely.
"Know you not that by so doing in the hearing of that young man,
and by such uncircumspect fashion of coming hither, you have
disclosed yourself and utterly undone me?"

Garret looked fearfully over his shoulder. He seemed completely
unnerved and unstrung.

"Was the young man following? Alas! I knew it not. I came hither to
seek Robert Ferrar, but he was out; and knowing that you had
planned to move hither, and thinking it likely you might already
have done so, I asked the servant where you were to be found, and
he pointed out the place, and said he knew that you were within;
but I knew not he had followed me. Could he have known who I am?"

"Nay, that I know not; but he heard you declare how you had been
taken and had escaped. Alack, Master Garret, we are in a sore
strait! How comes it that you are not safe in Dorsetshire, as I
have been happily picturing you?"

Garret burst into tears. He was utterly broken down. He had not
tasted food during the whole day, and was worn out with anxiety and
apprehension. Dalaber set bread before him, and he fell upon it
eagerly, meantime telling, with tears and sighs, the story of his
wanderings, his resolution to return, and his apprehension in the
middle of the previous night by the proctors.

"They took me to the house of the commissary," added Garret, "and
they shut me up in a bare room, with naught save a pitcher of water
beside me. I trow they sought to break my spirit with fasting, for
none came nigh me when the day dawned, and I was left in cold and
hunger, not knowing what would befall me. But when the afternoon
came, and a hush fell upon the place, and no sound of coming or
going was to be heard, I made shift, after much labour, to slip the
bolt of my prison, and to steal forth silently and unobserved; and
surely the Lord must have been with me, for I met no living soul as
I quitted the college, and I drew my hood over my face and walked
softly through the narrowest streets and lanes, and so forth and
hither, thinking myself safest without the walls. And now I pray
you, my dear young friend and brother, give me a coat with sleeves
instead of this gown, and a hat, if you have one that smacks not of
the priest; for from henceforth I will stand as a free man amongst
men, and will serve no longer in the priest's office. To the Lord I
am a priest for ever. I will serve Him with the best that I have;
but I will no longer hol