‘But if my conscience and I seek a daysman betwixt us?’

‘Mortal man can never be that daysman, Dorothy.  Nay, an’ thou need an umpire, thou must seek to him who brought thee and thy conscience together and told thee to agree.  Let God, over all and in all, tell thee whether or no thou wert wrong.  For me, I dare not.  Believe me, Dorothy, it is sheer presumption for one man to intermeddle with the things that belong to the spirit of another man.’

‘But these are only the things of a woman,’ said Dorothy, in pure childish humility born of love.

‘Sure, Dorothy, thou wouldst not jest in such sober matters.’

’God forbid, Richard!  I but spoke that which was in me.  I see now it was foolishness.’

‘All a man can do in this matter of judgment,’ said Richard, ’is to lead his fellow man, if so be he can, up to the judgment of God.  He must never dare judge him for himself.  An’ thou cannot tell whether thou did well or ill in what thou didst, thou shouldst not vex thy soul.  God is thy refuge—­even from the wrongs of thine own judgment.  Pray to him to let thee know the truth, that if needful thou mayst repent.  Be patient and not sorrowful until he show thee.  Nor fear that he will judge thee harshly because he must judge thee truly.  That were to wrong God.  Trust in him even when thou fearest wrong in thyself, for he will deliver thee therefrom.’

‘Ah! how good and kind art thou, Richard.’

‘How should I be other to thee, beloved Dorothy?’

‘Thou art not then angry with me that I did deceive thee?’

’If thou didst right, wherefore should I be angry?  If thou didst wrong, I am well content to know that thou wilt be sorry therefor as soon as thou seest it, and before that thou canst not, thou must not, be sorry.  I am sure that what thou knowest to be right that thou will do, and it seemeth as if God himself were content with that for the time.  What the very right thing is, concerning which we may now differ, we must come to see together one day—­the same, and not another, to both, and this doing of what we see, is to each of us the path thither.  Let God judge us, Dorothy, for his judgment is light in the inward parts, showing the truth and enabling us to judge ourselves.  For me to judge thee and thee me, Dorothy, would with it bear no light.  Why, Dorothy, knowest thou not—­yet how shouldst thou know? that this is the very matter for the which we, my father and his party, contend—­that each man, namely, in matters of conscience, shall be left to his God, and remain unjudged of his brother?  And if I fight for this on mine own part, unto whom should I accord it if not to thee, Dorothy, who art the highest in soul and purest in mind and bravest in heart of all women I have known?  Therefore I love thee with all the power of a heart that loves that which is true before that which is beautiful, and that which is honest before that which is of good report.’