There was evident sympathy on many faces, and the girl, looking down from above, noted how many groups there were talking earnestly and quietly together, and how they threw quick glances over their shoulders, as though half afraid lest what they were saying might be overheard.
"I trow there are many here who have dared to read the Word of God and discuss it freely together, and compare the church as it now is with the church, the Bride of the Lamb.

I wonder if they would have all submitted, had it been their lot to stand before those judges and hear the sentence pronounced." A thrill seemed suddenly to pass through the crowd; the people pressed forward and then surged back.
"They are coming! they are coming!" the whisper went round, and Freda felt the blood ebbing away from her cheeks, and for a moment her eyes were too dim to see.
The solemn procession of heads and masters, clerks and beadles, seemed to swim before her in a quivering haze.

Her strained eyes were fixed upon those other figures bringing up the rear--those men in the garb of the penitent, each bearing a fagot on his shoulder, and carrying a lighted taper in his hand.
Was Anthony among them?
She held her breath in a sickening suspense, scarce knowing whether or not she longed to see him.

She knew almost each face as it loomed up into view: there was young Fitzjames, their kinsman, looking shame-faced but submissive; there were Udel and Diet, Bayley, Cox, and others whom she had never suspected of having been concerned in the movement; and there, almost at the rear of the long procession, walked Anthony Dalaber, his dark, thin face looking worn and haggard, his hair tumbled and unkempt, his dark eyes bent upon the ground, his feet slow and lagging, but whether from weakness or unwillingness she was not able to say.

She held her breath to watch him as he appeared.