Clarice was too stunned with pain to remember her courtly duties. She only looked up at Earl Edmund.
“Clarice, my poor child! I want thee to know that I did my best for thee.”
“I humbly thank your Lordship,” Clarice forced herself to say.
“And it may be, my child, though it seems hard to believe, that God is doing His best for thee too.”
“Then what would His worst be?” came in a gush from Clarice.
“It might be that for which thou wouldst thank Him now.”
The sorrowing girl was arrested in spite of herself, for the Earl spoke in that tone of quiet certainty which has more effect on an undecided mind than any words. She wondered how he knew, not realising that he knows “more than the ancients” who knows God and sorrow.
“My child,” said the Earl again, “man’s best and God’s best are often very different things. In the eyes of Monseigneur Saint Jacob, the best thing would have been to spare his son from being cast into the pit and sold to the Ishmaelites. But God’s best was to sell the boy into slavery, and to send him into a dungeon, and then to lift him up to the steps of the king’s throne. When then comes, Clarice, we shall be satisfied with what happened to us now.”
“When will it come, my Lord?” asked Clarice, in a dreary tone.
“When it is best,” replied the Earl quietly.