A meeting at Radley’s house had broken up.  Dalaber and Garret walked homewards in the dusk towards their quarters in St. Alban Hall.  When Garret was in Oxford, Fitzjames gave up his share of Dalaber’s lodging to him, and betook himself elsewhere; but when they reached the room they found somebody sitting there awaiting them in the dusk, and Dalaber hailed him as Fitzjames.

But as the stranger rose he saw that he had been mistaken.  It was Arthur Cole, and his face was grave as he quietly closed the door.

“I have come to warn you, Master Garret,” he said in a low voice.  “Your doings in this place have become known, and have betrayed your whereabouts.  Cardinal Wolsey himself has sent down a mandate for your arrest.  The Dean of Cardinal College is even now in conference with the Commissary of the University and with Dr. London of New College.  You know very well what mercy you are like to meet with if you fall into their hands.”

Dalaber started and changed colour; but Garret had been a hunted man before this, and received the news quietly.

“They know I am in Oxford, then.  Do they know where I may be found?” he asked quietly enough.

“Not yet.  They are about to put the proctors on the scent.  Tonight you are safe, but early on the morrow inquisition and search will commence.  You will be speedily discovered and arrested if you are not far enough away by that time.

“Be warned, Master Garret.  You are reckoned as a mischievous man.  The cardinal is not cruel, but some of his colleagues and subordinates are.  Men have been burnt at the stake before this for offences lighter than yours, for you not only hold heretical doctrines yourself, but you seek to spread them broadcast throughout the land.  That is not an offence easily passed over.”

Dalaber felt as though a cold stream of water were running down his back.  His vivid imagination grasped in a moment all the fearful possibilities of the case, and he felt his knees fail for a moment under him.  Yet it was not for himself he feared at that moment.  He scarcely realized that this tracking down of Garret might lead to revelations which would be damaging to himself.  His fears and his tremors were all for his friend—­that friend standing motionless beside him as though lost in thought.

“You hold me a heretic, too, Master Cole?”

“I do,” answered the young man at once, and without hesitation.

“And yet you come and warn me—­a step that might cost you dear were it known to the authorities.”

“Yes,” answered Cole quietly; “I come to warn you, and that for two reasons, neither of which is sympathy with the cause you advocate.  I warn you because you are a graduate of Magdalen College, and I had some knowledge of you in the past, and received some kindness at your hands long since, when I was a youthful clerk and you a regent master; and also because I have a great friendship for Dalaber here,