This
uncertainty waxed into a torment, and yet a sweet torment, as of a lover
who watches his mistress' shuttered house; and this torment swelled yet
higher and deeper until it was so great that it had absorbed the whole
radiant fragrant circle of the hills where he walked; and then came the
blinding knowledge that the Presence was all these persons so dear to
him, and far more; that every tenderness and grace that he had loved in
them--Mary's gallantry and Isabel's serene silence and his friend's
fellowship, and the rest--floated in the translucent depths of it,
stained and irradiated by it, as motes in a sunbeam.
And then he woke, and it was through tears of pure joy that he saw the
rafters overhead, and the great barred door, and the discoloured wall
above his bed.
* * * *
When his gaoler brought him dinner that day it was half an hour earlier
than usual; and when Anthony asked him the reason he said that he did not
know, but that the orders had run so; but that Mr. Norris might take
heart; it was not for the torture, for Mr. Topcliffe, who superintended
it, had told the keeper of the rack-house that nothing would be wanted
that day.
He had hardly finished dinner when the gaoler came up again and said that
the Lieutenant was waiting for him below, and that he must bring his hat
and cloak.
Since his arrest he had worn his priest's habit every day, so he now
threw the cloak over his arm and took his hat, and followed the gaoler
down.
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