, "but that he was too enfeebled by captivity to walk in
the procession."

"That is false," said Freda, in a low voice. "Master Clarke might
have won his liberty with the rest, but he refused to take any part
in the spectacle today at Carfax."

"Yet he never circulated the books," broke out Garret. "He ofttimes
cautioned me against importing too many of the treatises written in
Germany. He would not approve all that they contained. He could
have cast such books upon the flames without violating his
conscience. Wherefore was he not there with the rest of us?"

It was Freda who, after a pause, made answer:

"He knew that men would not distinguish between the burning of
books by men and the burning of the precious Word of God. It was
this that held him back."

"Yea, verily," cried Dalaber, with a blaze of his old excitement,
"he was true to his conscience, and we were not. He knew that those
who saw that procession would regard it as an admission of heresy.
He was no heretic, and he would have neither part nor lot with it.
He has ever stood firm in this--that the church of the living God
is pure and holy, and that she asks no such acts of submission and
recantation from her sons, when their only desire has been to extol
Him and to make His way clear upon earth. How could his pure and
holy spirit make confession of evil? He could not, and he would
not. He will lay down his life for the gospel's sake; but he will
not be deceived, as we were.

"I can see it now as I could not when the walls of prison and the
mists of fever were closing me in. We have, as it were, admitted
that to read the Word of God and to give it to others to read is a
sin against the church. He has stood on the ground he adopted from
the first--that the church has never forbidden it, and that those
who do so are not her true and faithful stewards and ministers; and
for that conviction he is ready to die. He will not let himself be
deceived or cajoled. His light is the light from above, and it will
shine upon his path to the very end."

Ferrar and Garret had no intention of lingering long. They were
about to go forth together into the world--probably to make their
way to Germany--and Garret had had some thought that Dalaber might
possibly accompany them on their journey. But they saw that he had
other views for himself, and did not even ask him.

The spell which Garret had once exercised upon him was broken now.
They would ever be as friends and