for a few paces; then he asked--

'And was the world much the better?'

'Beau sire,' replied Milo, 'not very much. But that was not God's fault;
for it had, and still has, the chance of being the better for it.'

'And do you dare, Milo,' said the King, turning him a stern face, 'set
my horrible offence beside the Divine Sacrifice?'

'Not so, my lord King,' said Milo at large; 'but I draw this
distinction. You are not so guilty as you suppose; for in this world the
father maketh the son, both in the way of nature and of precept. In
heaven it is otherwise. There the Son was from the beginning, co-eternal
with the Father, begotten but not made. In the divine case there was
pure sacrifice, and no guilt at all. In the earthly case there was much
guilt, but as yet no sacrifice.'

'That guilt was mine, Milo,' said Richard with a sob.

'Lord, I think not,' answered the old priest. 'You are what your fathers
have made you. But now mark me well: in doing sacrifice you can be very
greatly otherwise. Then if no more guilt be upon you than hangs by the
misfortunes of tainted man, you can please Almighty God by doing what
you only among men can do, wholesome sacrifice.'

'Why, what sacrifice shall I do?' says the King.

Milo stood up in his stirrups, greatly exalted in the spirit.

'My lord,' he said, 'behold, it is for two years that you have borne the
sign of that sacrifice upon you, but yet have done nothing of it. During
these years God's chosen seat hath lain dishonoured, become the wash-pot
of the heathen. The Holy Tree, stock beyond price, Rod of Grace, figure
of freedom, is in bonds. The Sepulchre is ensepulchred; Antichrist
reigns. Lord, Lord,'--here the Abbot shook his lifted finger,--'how long
shall this be? You ask me of sin and sacrifice. Behold the way.'

King Richard jerked his head, then his horse's. Get back, Milo, and
leave me,' he said curtly, struck in the spurs, and galloped away over
the grey down.

The cavalcade halted at Thouars, and lay the night in a convent of the
Order of Savigny. King Richard kept himself to himself, ate little,
spoke less. He prayed out the night, or most of it, kneeling in his
shirt in the sanctuary, with his bare sword held before him like a
cross. Next morning he called up his household by the first cock, had
them out on the road before the sun, and pushed forward with such haste
that it was one hour short of noon when they saw the great church of the
nuns of Fontevrault