"What is your will?" came the question, and Margaret's heart leapt at the sound of Herman's voice.
"I must come in to search your house, Master Bengel."
"To search my house?" interrupted Herman, who did not betray any perturbation in his voice in spite of the sight of a double row of soldiers in the street. "For what? For whom?"
"For one named William Tyndale," answered the Captain, who was taken by surprise at this show of ease—the absence of confusion and fear.
Margaret could scarce believe her ears when a laugh came through the rain; a laugh she would have known if all the men in the city had been there.
"For one named William Tyndale?" Herman cried, after the laugh, and in such a tone of incredulity that Margaret was amazed at his courage, and his ease in carrying it, when he must have known that he was faced with the prospect of the wheel, or prison, or the stake, with torture preceding it. "Who told you such a mad thing that the Englishman should be here in my house, of all houses in the city?"
"Never mind that," was the impatient answer. "Open this door, and let me enter."
"I protest that you will find no William Tyndale here, if you mean the so-called Reformer who, they say, came over from England some time since," said Herman, as he leisurely pulled the shutter into its place.
It astonished Margaret that he should play this part; and yet she admired his effrontery, and was taken with his boldness in meeting the inevitable disaster. That inevitable thing was ruin. It was death! But her heart bounded with a certain pride at her lover's fortitude. Better die a bold man than a craven. And he was bound to die, because William Tyndale was in the house!
She heard the bolt being drawn. She heard the clinking of the falling chain. She caught the sound of the screaming key in the lock, and then the dull grumble of the opening door.