“And with perfect justice,” answered Petrus, “if the success is attained, not in mere child’s play, but by a severe struggle.  ’To him, that hath, shall more be given,’ says the scripture, and he who has a soul more richly graced than others have—­he who is helped by good spirits—­he shall be forgiven many things that even a mild judge would be unwilling to pardon in a man of poor gifts, who torments and exerts himself and yet brings nothing to perfection.  Be kind to the boy again.  Do you know what prospect lies before you through him?  You yourself in your life have done much good, and spoken much wisdom, and I, and the children, and the people in this place, will never forget it all.  But I can promise you the gratitude of the best and noblest who now live or who will live in centuries to come—­for that you are the mother of Polykarp!”

“And people say,” cried Dorothea, “that every mother has four eyes for her children’s merits.  If that is true, then fathers no doubt have ten, and you as many as Argus, of whom the heathen legend speaks—­But there comes Polykarp.”

Petrus went forward to meet his son, and gave him his hand, but in quite a different manner to what he had formerly shown; at least it seemed to Dorothea that her husband received the youth, no longer as his father and master, but as a friend greets a friend who is his equal in privileges and judgment.  When Polykarp turned to greet her also she colored all over, for the thought flashed through her mind that her son, when he thought of the past night, must regard her as unjust or foolish; but she soon recovered her own calm equanimity, for Polykarp was the same as ever, and she read in his eyes that he felt towards her the same as yesterday and as ever.

“Love,” thought she, “is not extinguished by injustice, as fire is by water.  It blazes up brighter or less bright, no doubt, according to the way the wind blows, but it cannot be wholly smothered—­least of all by death.”

Polykarp had been up the mountain, and Dorothea was quite satisfied when he related what had led him thither.  He had long since planned the execution of a statue of Moses, and when his father had left him, he could not get the tall and dignified figure of the old man out of his mind.  He felt that he had found the right model for his work.  He must, he would forget—­and he knew, that he could only succeed if he found a task which might promise to give some new occupation to his bereaved soul.  Still, he had seen the form of the mighty man of God which he proposed to model, only in vague outline before his mind’s eye, and he had been prompted to go to a spot whither many pilgrims resorted, and which was known as the Place of Communion, because it was there that the Lord had spoken to Moses.  There Polykarp had spent some time, for there, if anywhere—­there, where the Law-giver himself had stood, must he find right inspiration.

“And you have accomplished your end?” asked his father.