This was the work that his brother was doing. He sat now more distracted than ever: mental pictures moved before him of strange council-rooms with great men in silk on raised seats, and Ralph was among them. He seemed to hear his bitter questions that pierced to the root of the faith of the accused, and exposed it to the world, of their adherence to the Vicar of Christ, their uncompromising convictions. He had sat through dinner with burning eyes, but the Prior noticed nothing, for he himself was in a passion of absorption, and gave Chris a hasty leave as he rose from table to go and see his brother if he wished. Chris had walked up and down his room that afternoon, framing sentences of appeal and pity and terror, but it was useless: he could not fix his mind; and he had gone off at last to Westminster at once terrified for Ralph’s soul, and blazing with indignation against him. And now he was walking down to the river again, in the cool of the evening, knowing that he had ruined his own cause and his right to speak by his intemperate fury. * * * * * It was another strange evening that he passed in the Prior’s chamber after supper. The same monk, Dom Odo, who had taken him to Tyburn the day before, was there again; and Chris sat in a corner, with the reaction of his fury on him, spent and feverish, now rehearsing the scene he had gone through with Ralph, and framing new sentences that he might have used, now listening to the talk, and vaguely gathering its meaning. It seemed that the tale of blood was only begun. Bedale, the Archdeacon of Cornwall, had gone that day to the Charterhouse; he had been seen driving there, and getting out at the door with a bundle of books under his arm, and he had passed in through the gate over which Prior Houghton’s arm had been hung on the previous evening. It was expected that some more arrests would be made immediately. “As for my Lord of Rochester,” said the monk, who seemed to revel in the business of bearing bad news, “and Master More, I make no doubt they will be cast. They are utterly fixed in their opinions. I hear that my lord is very sick, and I pray that God may take him to Himself. He is made Cardinal in Rome, I hear; but his Grace has sworn that he shall have no head to wear the hat upon.” Then he went off into talk upon the bishop, describing his sufferings in the Tower, for he was over eighty years old, and had scarcely sufficient clothes to cover him. Now and again Chris looked across at his Superior. The Prior sat there in his great chair, his head on his hand, silent and absorbed; it was only when Dom Odo stopped for a moment that he glanced up impatiently and nodded for him to go on. It seemed as if he could not hear enough, and yet Chris saw him wince, and heard him breathe sharply as each new detail came out. The monk told them, too, of Prior Houghton’s speech upon the cart.