"Here I am, Master Gaoler: what would you with me?" "Tie on your hood and follow me; you are to come afore my Lord of Dover." Alice's heart beat somewhat faster, as she took down her hood from one of the pegs around the room, and followed the gaoler through a long passage, up a flight of steps, across a courtyard, and into the hall where the Bishop was holding his Court. She said nothing which the gaoler could hear: but the God in whom Alice trusted heard an earnest cry of--"Lord, I am Thine; save Thine handmaid that trusteth in Thee!" The gaoler led her forward to the end of a long table which stood before the Bishop, and announced her name to his Lordship. "Alice Benden, of Briton's Mead, Staplehurst, an' it like your Lordship." "Ah!" said his Lordship, in an amiable tone; "she it is touching whom I had letters. Come hither to me, I pray you, Mistress. Will you now go home, and go to church in time coming?" That meant, would she consent to worship images, and to do reverence to the bread of the Lord's Supper as if Christ Himself were present? There was no going to church in those days without that. And that, as Alice Benden knew, was idolatry, forbidden by God in the First and Second Commandments. "If I would have so done," she said in a quiet, modest tone, "I needed not have come hither." "Wilt thou go home, and be shriven of thy parish priest?" "No, I will not." Alice could not believe that a man could forgive sins. Only God could do that; and He did not need a man through whom to do it. The Lord Jesus was just as able to say to her from His throne above, as He had once said on earth to a poor, trembling, despised woman--"Thy sins be forgiven thee; go in peace." Something had made "Dick of Dover" unusually gentle that afternoon. He only replied--"Well, go thy ways home, and go to church when thou wilt." Alice made no answer. She was resolved to promise nothing. But a priest who stood by, whether mistakenly thinking that she spoke, or kind enough to wish to help her, answered for her--"She says she will, my Lord." "Enough. Go thy ways!" said the Bishop, who seemed to wish to set her at liberty: perhaps he was a little afraid of the influential men who had interceded for her. Alice, thus dismissed, walked out of the hall a free woman. As she came out into Palace Street, a hand was laid upon her shoulder. "Well, Alice!" said Edward Benden's voice. "I wrought hard to fetch you forth; I trust you be rightly thankful. Come home."