"Yes, I suppose He knows." But the consideration did not seem to
comfort him as it had done before when suggested by Father Bevis.

"Perhaps," said the Prior again, softly, "there was no other way for
your Lordship to the gate of the Holy City. He leads us by diverse
ways; some through the flowery mead, and some over the desert sands
where no water is. But of all it is written, `He led them forth by the
right way, that they might reach the haven of their desire.' Would your
Lordship have preferred the mead and have missed the haven?"

"No," answered the Earl, firmly.

"Remember that you hold God's promise that when you awake up after His
likeness you shall be satisfied with it. And he is not satisfied with
his purchase who accounts it to have cost more than it was worth."

"Will your figure hold if pressed further?" said the Earl, with a wintry
smile. "The purchase may be worth a thousand marks, but if I have but
five hundred in the world I shall starve to death before the gem is
mine."

"No, my Lord, it will not hold. For you cannot pay the price of that
gem. The cost of it was His who will keep it safe for you, so that you
cannot fling it away in mistake or folly. Figures must fail somewhere;
and we want another in this case. My Lord, you are the gem, and the
heavenly Graver is fashioning on you the King's likeness. Will you stay
His hand before it is perfect?"

"I would it were near perfection!" sighed the Earl.

"Perhaps it is," said the Prior, gently. "Remember, it is your Father
who is graving it."

The Earl's lip quivered. "If one could but know when it would be done!
If one might know that in seven years--ten years--it would be complete,
and one's heart and brain might find rest! But to think of its going on
for twenty, thirty, forty--"

"They will look short enough, my Lord, when they are over."

"True. But not while they are passing."

"Nay, `No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous.' Yet `faint
not when thou art rebuked of Him.'"

"It is the going on, that is so terrible!" said the Earl, almost under
his breath. "If one might die when one's hope dies! Father, do you
know anything of that?"

"In this world, my Lord, I dug a grave in mine own heart for all my
hopes, forty years ago."

"And can you look back on that time calmly?"

"That depends on what you mean by calmness. Trustfully, yes;
indifferently, no."

"Yet the religious say that God requires their affe