Calmly enough, to outward show, Agnes looked on his face as he came up to the Bishop,--that face so plain and uncomely to other eyes, so dear and beautiful to hers. There would be time enough for weeping hereafter, in that dreary future, of which the vista seemed to stretch before her in illimitable desert: but now she could afford to lose no tone of that yoke, no moment of the time permitted for gazing on that face. She might never see him again until they should stand together before the throne of God. John Laurence answered every question asked of him calmly and firmly. He admitted that he was a priest, eighteen years in orders, and sometime a Black Friar professed. But Bonner's spies had told him more than this; and it was not his wont to omit the wringing of a heretic's heart. "Art thou not ensured unto a maid in way of marriage?" "I am so, my Lord," said John Laurence. "Didst thou truly propose to wed with her?" "By God's leave, I did." And Agnes Stone, standing in the crowd, heard herself thus confessed before God and man--a confession which, she full well knew, stamped him who made it, in the eyes of these his judges, with indelible disgrace. "And what is thine opinion on the Sacrament?" inquired Bonner in a confidential manner. "It is a remembrance of Christ's body." "Then what sayest thou of them which believe, as we do, that it _is_ Christ's body?" "I say that they are deceived." "Thinkest thou that all do err which believe not as thou dost?" said Bonner with his usual bluster. "I do say so, my Lord," was the determined answer. Once more the prisoners were remanded, but only until afternoon. Agnes did not dare to stay. She had ascertained from Cicely Marvell, whom she saw in the crowd, that prisoners' friends were often permitted a farewell interview between sentence and execution; and if she meant to apply for that, she must not risk Mistress Winter's anger by remaining now. Cicely promised to bring her news of the sentence. "Lo' you now! here cometh my fair Lady Dominica!" was Dorothy's salutation, as Agnes re-entered the kitchen. "What news, sweet Mistress Blackfriars? Is thy goodly sweet-heart consecrate Lord Bishop of Duneery, or shall he but be Master Doctor Dean of Foolscap?" Agnes vouchsafed no answer. "Woe betide us! here is Madam Gospeller hath lost her tongue!" cried Dorothy. "Do but give me to wit, prithee, sweetest Sacramentary! So dear love I all Black Friars, I may never sleep till I know." "They be yet again remanded," replied Agnes dreamily. Though she felt sure what the end would be, it was impossible to realise it. Surely all that was passing must be some dreadful dream, from which she would presently awake, perhaps in the little bed which used to be hers in her aunt's pretty cottage, and find that all the past, for eight years, had been a groundless vision.