Both were silent for a while, Agnes learning her new lesson.
“Mine heart!” said John Laurence suddenly, “the right way at times looks like the wrong.”
“What meanest thou, John?” said Agnes, looking into his face, and startled by its expression of pain.
“Dear heart, we know not what lieth afore us. We be so blind, Agnes! But He knows. It is enough, if we are ready to follow Him. Canst thou dare follow, as well through the flood and the fire as through the flowery mead?”
“I cannot tell,” she said tremulously. “I would try.”
“There be two staves to lean on in our weariness,” he said. “The one is for earth: ‘Fear not, because I am with thee.’ And the other is of Heaven, but gildeth earth with hope: ‘Where I am, there shall My servant be.’ There must be glory and sweetness, where is Jesus Christ.”
Long years afterwards, Agnes recalled those words.