"I may not make my letter much longer. Prithee tell me some news of England, if any be; and shouldst thou hear ought of my gracious mistress [the Duchess of Suffolk], I would like much to know it. "I do well-nigh wish I had not gone into that chamber! and yet, if I have in any wise comforted her, it is well. It hath maybe done her some little good to pour forth her sorrows to me for a minute. But now I never awake of a night but I listen for those fearful screams. I thank God, I have not heard them again as yet. Methinks her gossips did blunder in naming her Juana; they should have called her Dolores [sorrows]. "I pray thee, make mine hearty commendations to Mr Avery and all other that I know; and kiss thy little Kate for me. And so I commend thee to the tuition of God. From Tordesillas, this fourteenth of August.--Thine own assuredly,-- "Annis Holland." When we look back over the way which the Lord has led us these forty years in the wilderness, we sometimes find in retrospect the Marahs no sadder than the Elims. Nay, there are times when the Elims are the sadder. "A sorrow's crown of sorrow Is, remembering happier things." There was much sorrow of that class for the 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.