"Thou hast well spoken, Lawrence—’afore God had it ready.’ Hast thou read certain words of Saint Stephen the martyr touching Moyses, that great Prophet of God? ’He guessed that his brethren should understand that God should give to them health by the hand of him: but they understood not.’ How should they? Nor was it they that were lacking. It was Moyses that understood not—understood not that the day of deliverance was not come by forty years—that forty years’ keeping of sheep in Midian must needs be first. Yet God did mean to deliver them by his hand; it was not undone, only latered.[#] He did so when the right time came—when He was ready, and when Moyses was ready, and when Israel was ready." [#] Deferred. "It seemeth me," answered Lawrence, sighing, "that man lacketh much training at our Lord’s hand, ere he be fit for a deliverer." "More than any can rightly judge, out-taken our Lord. The fellowship of Christ’s work may well include the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. Mark thou, a stone-breaker needs no training; a goldsmith must have much. The finer the tool shall be, the sharper must be the grinding of it. What is behind thy thoughts, Lawrence?" "Methinks, Father, you wit my Lord’s earnest desire to be he that should peace Ireland with England?—and you know how foot-hot he flingeth himself, soul and body, into all that cometh to his hand for to be done?" "I know," said Mr. Robesart, with a smile in which amusement and pity had equal shares. "I was marvelling if he were ready," said Lawrence in the same low voice. "I am something feared lest he may run ere he be sent." "Men of his disposition are prone to make that blunder." "That would not bring success." "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.