"Not the brass counter of it, in very sooth: yet it might be a step on the way to the gold. It were more like to bring a lesson to himself than success to his plan. Yet even there, Lawrence, that is at times the truest success which hath most the look of failure. It did not look like success when the cross was reared on the hill of Calvary. Yet that night he was destroyed that had the power of death, and the gates of the kingdom of Heaven were flung open to all believers."
Lawrence did not answer for a moment. Then he said, in a lower tone than ever,—"There be that seem as though they could not learn from the past."
"Let us have a care we be not of them. And for others let us pray."
"It is hard," was the reply with an unsteady voice, "to see a life flung away and lost, for the which you would give your own and count it nothing worth."
"That is not lost," was Mr. Robesart's answer, "which is given to God and our neighbour. The only lost lives are those that be cast away upon Satan and ourselves. He will not lose his life: another may."
Lawrence had no need to inquire if Mr. Robesart were thinking of the Countess.
"And if it were as thou shouldst seem to fear," resumed the priest, "if our young Lord should fling away all, even to earthly life, upon this earnest burning desire that hath possessed him,—who are we to say him nay? This may be God's work for him. It were a good work, surely, if it could be done."
"It were a good work to dry up a quicksand," answered Lawrence, significantly: "yet if a man flung therein all the gold of his having, it should be cast away, and the quicksand be no drier. Father, it seems to me a work that cannot be done, or that, if it were done, should cost a thousand lives as fair as his, and take maybe a thousand years to do it."
"Lawrence Madison," said Mr. Robesart, gravely, "thou and I had better let the Lord's purposes alone, for the chances be an hundred to one that we shall do them mischief. It were unwisdom to stay the wheels of the world lest they should crush a fly."
Lawrence gave a gesture of impatience, almost involuntary.