"He should have written to me," he said sternly. "And, my wife, I will beg you to remember that I have a right to my son's business."
Lady Torridon did not move or answer. He leaned back again, and passed his hand tenderly through Chris's arm.
It was very strange to the younger son to find himself a few minutes later up again in the west gallery of the chapel, where he had knelt two years before; and for a few moments he almost felt himself at home. But the mechanical shifting of his scapular aside as he sat down for the psalms, recalled facts. Then he had been in his silk suit, his hands had been rough with his cross-bow, his beard had been soft on his chin, and the blood hot in his cheeks. Now he was in his habit, smooth-faced and shaven, tired and oppressed, still weak from the pangs of soul-birth. He was further from human love, but nearer the Divine, he thought.
He sat with his father a few minutes after compline; and Sir James spoke more frankly of the news that they had heard.
"If she is really a friend of Mr. More's," he said, "she may be his salvation. I am sorely disappointed in him. I did not know Master Cromwell when I sent him to him, as I do now. Is it my fault, Chris?"
Chris told his father presently of what the Prior had said as to Ralph's assistance in the matter of the visit that the two monks had paid to the Tower; and asked an interpretation.
Sir James sat quiet a minute or two, stroking his pointed grey beard softly, and looking into the hearth.
"God forgive me if I am wrong, my son," he said at last, "but I wonder whether they let the my Lord Prior go to the Tower in order to shake the confidence of both. Do you think so, Chris?"
Chris too was silent a moment; he knew he must not speak evil of dignities.
"It may be so. I know that my Lord Prior--"
Sir James patted his son on the knee, and reassured him.
"Prior Crowham is a very holy man, I think; but--but somewhat delicate. However their designs have come to nothing. The bishop is in glory; and the other more courageous than he was."
Chris also had a few words with Mr. Carleton before he went to bed, sitting where he had sat in the moonlight two years before.
"If they have done so much," said the priest, "they will do more. When a man has slipped over a precipice he cannot save his fall. Master More will be the next to go; I make no doubt of that. You are to be a priest soon, Chris?"