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, and for Clarke, and for others known to you, and who would suffer grief, and fall perhaps into some peril were you to be taken.

Also, I hold that it is ofttimes right to succour the weak against the strong, and I love not persecution in any form, though the contumacious and recalcitrant have to be sternly dealt with.