he Gospellers at this time.
Ease and liberty had gone already: they were followed by the cruel agony
of parting. Within fourteen days of the 25th of February, every married
priest in the diocese of London was commanded to be deprived and
divorced. The first would have been a sufficiently bitter draught,
without the added desolation of the second. On the table before Isoult
Avery lay a sheet of paper, containing a few lines of uneven writing.
They were blotted with tears, and were signed "Marguerite Rose." Their
purport was to ask for shelter at the Lamb, for a few weeks, until she
could see her way more clearly. Thekla herself brought her mother's
letter. There were no tears from her, only her face was white, and
worn, and weary.

"And you have not wept, Thekla?" said Isoult.

"There are tears enough elsewhere," she said, and shook her head. "I
cannot weep. It would ease me, perhaps, if I could."

"These fiends of men!" cried Dr Thorpe, who was not renowned for
weighing his words carefully when he was indignant. "Is it because they
cannot drive nor persuade us into the sin and unbelief of Hell, that
they be determined we shall lose none of the torment of it, so far as
lieth in their hand to give us? Shall God see all this, and not move?
Have they banished Him out of the realm, with other strangers?"

"Bitter words, Dr Thorpe!" answered Robin, softly. "`Shall God cast
away His people, whom He foreknew?' From them that are lights in the
world, shall He who is the Light of the World depart? Nay, `when we
pass through the waters He will be with us.'"

"They are dark waters for some of us," whispered Thekla under her voice.

"But not fathomless, dear Thekla," replied Robin. "There are footsteps
before us, though we may not see them; and at the dreariest, there is
God above us."

"I hope so," responded Dr Thorpe. "I am afeard, Robin, thou shalt say I
am an unbeliever and a fool; but it doth look mainly as if He had fallen
asleep, and the Devil had stole the reins of the world out of His
hands."

"Not an unbeliever," said Robin, in his gentle manner; "only a believer
in the dark. `Lord, carest Thou not that we perish?' They were not
unbelievers that said that. But you well know the answer--`How is it
that ye have no faith?'"

"'Tis main hard to get hold of it, lad!" said Dr Thorpe, more quietly,
but with some choking in his voice.

"'Tis harder to do without it," answered Robin.

Dr Thorpe never