John Laurence answered every question asked of him calmly and firmly. He admitted that he was a priest, eighteen years in orders, and sometime a Black Friar professed. But Bonner’s spies had told him more than this; and it was not his wont to omit the wringing of a heretic’s heart.
“Art thou not ensured unto a maid in way of marriage?”
“I am so, my Lord,” said John Laurence.
“Didst thou truly propose to wed with her?”
“By God’s leave, I did.”
And Agnes Stone, standing in the crowd, heard herself thus confessed before God and man—a confession which, she full well knew, stamped him who made it, in the eyes of these his judges, with indelible disgrace.
“And what is thine opinion on the Sacrament?” inquired Bonner in a confidential manner.
“It is a remembrance of Christ’s body.”
“Then what sayest thou of them which believe, as we do, that it is Christ’s body?”
“I say that they are deceived.”