He was, too, in that temper of inchoate agnosticism
that was sweeping England at the time, and any scruples that he had in
his more superstitious moments were lulled by the knowledge that the
clergy had acquiesced. What appeared more important to him than any
hair-splittings on the exact provinces of the various authorities in
question, was the necessity of some step towards the crippling of the
spiritual empire whose hands were so heavy, and whose demands so
imperious. He felt, as an Englishman, resentful of the leading strings
in which, so it seemed to him, Rome wished to fetter his country.

The bill passed through parliament on November the eighteenth.

* * * * *

Ralph lost no opportunity of impressing upon Beatrice how much he had
risked for the sake of her friend in the Tower, and drew very moving
sketches of his own peril.

The two were sitting together in the hall at Chelsea one winters evening
soon after Christmas. The high panelling was relieved by lines of
greenery, with red berries here and there; a bunch of mistletoe leaned
forward over the sloping mantelpiece, and there was an acrid smell of
holly and laurel in the air. It was a little piteous, Ralph thought,
under the circumstances.

Another stage had been passed in More's journey towards death, in the
previous month, when he had been attainted of misprision of treason by
an act designed to make good the illegality of his former conviction,
and the end was beginning to loom clear.

"I said it would be no use, Mistress Beatrice, and it is none--Master
Cromwell will not hear a word."

Beatrice looked up at Ralph, and down again, as her manner was. Her
hands were lying on her lap perfectly still as she sat upright in her
tall chair.

"You have done what you could, I know," she said, softly.

"Master Cromwell did not take it very well," went on Ralph with an
appearance of resolute composure, "but that was to be expected."

Again she looked up, and Ralph once more was seized with the desire to
precipitate matters and tell her what was in his heart, but he repressed
it, knowing it was useless to speak yet.

It was a very stately and slow wooing, like the movement of a minuet;
each postured to each, not from any insincerity, except perhaps a little
now and then on Ralph's side, but because for both it was a natural mode
of self-expression. It was an age of dignity abruptly broken here and
there by violence. There were