“It was perhaps Mr. Ralph Torridon’s name that your Grace—” began Cranmer.
“Nay, nay, it was not. What was it, sir?”
Chris’s heart was beating in his ears like a drum now. It had come, then, that peril that had always been brooding on the horizon, and which he had begun to despise. He had thought that there could be no danger in his going to the King; it was so long since Lewes had fallen, and his own part had been so small. But his Grace’s memory was good, it seemed! Danger was close to him, incarnate in that overwhelming presence. He said nothing, but stood awaiting detection.
“It is strange,” said Henry. “I have forgot. Well, my Lord?”
“I have told your Grace all,” explained the Archbishop. “Mr. Ralph Torridon has not yet been brought to trial, and his father hopes that your Grace will take into consideration these two things: that it was a mistake of over-faithfulness that his son committed; and that it has not hindered the course of justice.”
“Well, well,” said Henry, “and that sounds to be in reason. We have none too much of either faithfulness or justice in these days. And there is no other charge against the fellow?”
“There is no other charge, your Grace.”
There fell a complete silence for a moment or two.
Chris glanced up at his father, his own heart uplifted by hope, and saw the old man’s face trembling with it too. The wrinkled eyes were full of tears, and his lips quivered; and Chris could feel the short cloak that hung against him shaking at his hand. Nicholas’s crimson face showed a mingling of such emotion and solemnity that Chris was seized with an internal hysterical spasm; but it suddenly died within him as he brought his eyes round, and saw that the King was staring at him moodily....
The Archbishop’s voice broke in again.