e end, nevertheless," answered the Dominican. "When
we sit round the fire in the banquet hall, and all we love are round us,
and the doors shut safe, we shall easily forget the cold wind on the
water."

"When! Yes. But I am on the water yet, and it may be some hours before
my barge is moored at the garden steps. And--it is always the same,
Father. It does seem strange, when there is only one earthly thing for
which a man cares, that God should deny him that one thing. Why rouse
the hope which is never to be fulfilled? If the width of the world had
lain all our lives between me and my Lady, we should both have been
happier. Why should God bring us together to spoil each other's lives?
For I dare say she is as little pleased with her lot as I with mine--
poor Magot!"

"Will my Lord allow me to alter the figure he has chosen?" said the
Predicant Friar. "Look at your own barge moored down below. If the
rope were to break, what would become of the barge?"

"It would drift down the river."

"And if there were in it a little child, alone, too young to have either
skill or strength to steer it, what would become of him when the barge
shot the bridge?"

"Poor soul!--destruction, without question."

"And what if my Lord be that little child, safe as yet in the barge
which the Master has tied fast to the shore? The rope is his trouble.
What if it be his safety also? He would like far better to go drifting
down, amusing himself with the strange sights while daylight lasted; but
when night came, and the bridge to be passed, how then? Is it not
better to be safe moored, though there be no beauty or variety in the
scene?"

"Nay, Father, but is there no third way? Might the bridge not be passed
in safety, and the child take his pleasure, and yet reach home well and
sound?"

"Some children," said the Predicant Friar, with a tender intonation.
"But not that child."

The Earl was silent. The Prior softly repeated a text of Scripture.

"Endure chastisement. As sons God dealeth with you; what son then is
he, whom the Father chasteneth not?" [Hebrews 12, verse 7, Vulgate
version.]

A low, half-repressed sigh from his companion reminded the Prior that he
was touching a sore place. One of the Prince's bitterest griefs was his
childlessness. [He has told us so himself.] The Prior tacked about, and
came into deeper water.

"`Nor have we a High Priest who cannot sympathise with our infirmities,
for He was tempt