He was happier still when he was able to obtain the exclusive
companionship of Freda Langton in the sunny garden of the Bridge
House, and pour into her willing ears all the story of his visit
and its wonderful consequences. To Anthony Dalaber some sympathetic
confidante was almost a necessity of existence; and who so well
able to understand him as the girl he loved with every fibre of his
being, and who had almost promised him an answering love? There was
no peril to her in knowing these things. The day for making
rigorous inquisition in all directions had not yet come, and there
was no danger to himself in entrusting his safety to one as true
and stanch as this maiden.

Freda's sympathies from the outset had been with those independent
thinkers, who were in increasing peril of being branded as
heretics; and she listened with absorbing interest to the story of
the hidden books, the little band of Christian Brothers, the work
going on beneath their auspices, and the check temporarily put upon
it by the holocaust of books which Dalaber had witnessed at St.
Paul's.

"And you saw it--you saw them burn the books! You saw the great
cardinal sitting on his throne and watching! O Anthony, tell me,
what was he like?"

"His face I could not well see, I was too far away; but he walked
with stately mien, and his following was like that of royalty
itself. Such kingly pomp I have never witnessed before."

"And our Lord came meek and lowly, riding upon an ass, and had not
where to lay His head," breathed Freda softly. "Ah, ofttimes do I
wonder what He must think of all this, looking down from heaven,
where He sits expecting, till His enemies be made His footstool. I
wonder what yonder pageant looked like to Him--a prelate coming in
His place (as doubtless the cardinal would think) to judge those
whose crime has been the spreading abroad of the living Word, and
now watching the burning of countless books which contain that
living Word, and which might have brought joy and gladness to so
many. When I think of these things I could weep for these proud
men, who never weep for themselves. I can better understand the
words of Master Clarke when he says, 'Plead with your mother--plead
with her.'"

"We will plead. We have pleaded already; we will plead again and
yet again!" cried Dalaber, with a flash in his dark eyes. "But
methinks a time will come when the day of pleading will be past,
and the day of reckoning will come; and she w