a gold ring, or as a throned
figure in a Court circle. All else existed for the sake of this
person;--the heather blossomed and the gorse incensed the air, and the
sea sparkled, and the sky was blue, and the air kindled, and his own
heart warmed and throbbed, for that only. When he tried to see who it
was, there was nothing to see; the presence existed there as a centre in
a sphere, immeasurable and indiscernible; sometimes he thought it was
Mary, sometimes he thought it Henry Buxton, sometimes Isabel--once even
he assured himself it was Mistress Margaret, and once James Maxwell--and
with the very act of identification came indecision again. This
uncertainty waxed into a torment, and yet a sweet torment, as of a lover
who watches his mistress' shuttered house; and this torment swelled yet
higher and deeper until it was so great that it had absorbed the whole
radiant fragrant circle of the hills where he walked; and then came the
blinding knowledge that the Presence was all these persons so dear to
him, and far more; that every tenderness and grace that he had loved in
them--Mary's gallantry and Isabel's serene silence and his friend's
fellowship, and the rest--floated in the translucent depths of it,
stained and irradiated by it, as motes in a sunbeam.

And then he woke, and it was through tears of pure joy that he saw the
rafters overhead, and the great barred door, and the discoloured wall
above his bed.

* * * *

When his gaoler brought him dinner that day it was half an hour earlier
than usual; and when Anthony asked him the reason he said that he did not
know, but that the orders had run so; but that Mr. Norris might take
heart; it was not for the torture, for Mr. Topcliffe, who superintended
it, had told the keeper of the rack-house that nothing would be wanted
that day.

He had hardly finished dinner when the gaoler came up again and said that
the Lieutenant was waiting for him below, and that he must bring his hat
and cloak.

Since his arrest he had worn his priest's habit every day, so he now
threw the cloak over his arm and took his hat, and followed the gaoler
down.

In passing through the court he went by a group of men that were talking
together, and he noticed very especially a tall old man with a grey head,
in a Court suit with a sword, and very lean about the throat, who looked
at him hard as he passed. As he reached the archway where the Lieutenant
w