Mr. Robesart smiled a little sadly. "Aye, Lawrence. Take thou for example the best and truest thou hast known, but remember that he must needs fall far behind."
Lawrence went back to the button, uttering his thoughts in a low voice, as if he spoke to it rather than to the priest.
"He alway loved to have my little Lord at his knee," he reflected in this manner. "And he used to lift him up, and kiss him. And if he were in any trouble, my Lord would stay and hear him, even were it to his own travail. And had he been hither this morrow, I reckon it should have gone nigh to break his heart to see him thus.—Father Robesart! Doth God Almighty care for any man like that?"
"He cares like that for thee, Lawrence Madison."
Mr. Robesart paused an instant, and Lawrence thought the sentence was finished. But it was not, for one word followed it. "If——"
"If what?" said the boy quickly.
"If thou wilt have it so."
"If I will have it! Father Robesart, never nobody loved me! Never, in all my life!"
"Then see thou reject not the love which passeth all loves."
"What am I to do?"