And he who knows God may be sure of everything else."

"Is it so much to know God?"

"It is life. `Without God' and `Without hope' are convertible terms."

"My Lord," said Clarice, wondering much to hear a layman use language
which it seemed to her was only fit for priests, "how may one know God?"

"Go and ask Him. How dost thou know any one? Is it not by converse and
companionship?"

There was a silent pause till the Earl spoke again.

"Clarice," he said, "our Lord has a lesson to teach thee. It rests with
thee to learn it well or ill. If thou choose to be idle and obstinate,
and refuse to learn, thou mayst sit all day long on the form in
disgrace, and only have the task perfect at last when thou art wearied
out with thine own perverseness. But if thou take the book willingly,
and apply thyself with heart and mind, the task will be soon over, and
the teacher may give thee leave to go out into the sunshine."

"My Lord," said Clarice, "I do not know how to apply your words here.
How can I learn this task quickly?"

"Dost thou know, first, what the task is?"

"Truly, no."

"Then let a brother tell thee who has had it set to him. It is a hard
lesson, Clarice, and one that an inattentive scholar can make yet harder
if he will. It is, `Not my will, but Thine, be done.'"

"I cannot! I cannot!" cried Clarice passionately.

"Some scholars say that," replied the Earl gently, "until the evening
shadows grow very long. They are the weariest of all when they reach
home."

"My Lord, pardon me, but you cannot understand it!" Clarice stood up.
"I am young, and you--"

"I am over forty years," replied the Earl. "Ah, child, dost thou make
that blunder?--dost thou think the child's sorrows worse than the man's?
I have known both, and I tell thee the one is not to be compared to the
other. Young hearts are apt to think it, for grief is a thing new and
strange to them. But if ever it become to thee as thy daily bread, thou
wilt understand it better. It has been mine, Clarice, for eighteen
years."

That was a year more than Clarice had been in the world. She looked up
wonderingly into the saddened, dove-like Plantagenet eyes--those eyes
characteristic of the House--so sweet in repose, so fiery in anger.
Clarice had but a dim idea what his sorrow was.

"My Lord," she said, half inquiringly, "methinks you never knew such a
grief as mine?"

The smile which parted the Earl's lips was full of pity.

"Say ra