“Ay, to be sure, there is naught like a mutual friend and a mutual anxiety for drawing hearts together. And then, when the friend recovers, why the two begin to realise that in joy there is need of close sympathy too.” “Can it be that he hath fallen in love with Major Locke’s daughter?” asked Gabriel eagerly. “I should be right happy if so good a match could be found for her.” “While your grandmother half wishes that you could have fancied the pretty little heiress yourself.” Gabriel shook his head, with a smile that was more than half sad. “That was what her own father desired. Ah, poor man! I can see him now lying on the grass on that burning July day with his ghastly wound, and his effort even then to jest with us. I promised him ever to be a friend to Mistress Helena, but told him I was not free to wed her.” “Well, I shall be much surprised if she does not reward the devotion of Mr. Neal, and in truth it diverts me highly to watch his wooing. Now I shall leave you to rest in peace, for you have talked enough, and I purpose making one or two visits in the city. Bishop Coke implored me if possible to bear a letter from him to the Archbishop, and I have leave through Sir Robert Harley to visit him in the Tower. You’ll not, I think, grudge me for an hour even to your arch-enemy, Dr. Laud.” Gabriel smiled. “I thought often of him as I lay in Oxford Castle,” he said, quietly, “and have lost all my rancorous hatred of him as a man. Now that the days of his tyranny and harsh government are ended I marvel that they do not let him go free.” “I understand that the Parliament would be quite willing that he should escape,” said the Doctor thoughtfully. “But I will speak with you again on that point when I return.” Provided with the necessary order, Dr. Harford found no difficulty in gaining access to Archbishop Laud, who, indeed, through the greater part of his imprisonment in the Bloody Tower, was allowed to receive visitors. Ushered up the winding stairs and into the long, narrow cell, with its deeply-splayed window, the Doctor found himself once again in the presence of the little man who had rated him with such angry violence years before, and he was touched to find how greatly adversity had softened and mellowed the Archbishop. The real goodness of the man, the sincerity of his faith, shone out now like pure gold; his fussiness, his overbearing temper, his misguided zeal, were things of the past--the dross which had sadly marred his career, yet would not in the end triumph over him. Always an unhealthy man, he was now worn and prematurely aged, seeming, indeed, to have the most precarious hold on life. The physician longed to see him released, for although he was permitted as much air and exercise as he pleased within the grounds of the Tower, and found great solace in the services of the Tower Church, yet the monotony and the inevitable restrictions of prison life were evidently preying on his feeble powers.