of opinion—­could he be sure that his own opinions were correct?—­that constitutes rightness, but that condition of soul which, as a matter of course, causes it to move along the lines of truth and duty—­the life going forth in motion according to the law of light:  this alone places a nature in harmony with the central Truth.  It was in the doing of the will of his Father that Jesus was the son of God—­yea the eternal son of the eternal Father.

Nor was this to make little of the truth intellectually considered—­of the fact of things.  The greatest fact of all is that we are bound to obey the truth, and that to the full extent of our knowledge thereof, however little that may be.  This obligation acknowledged and obeyed, the road is open to all truth—­and the only road.  The way to know is to do the known.

Then why, thought Richard with himself, should he and Dorothy be parted?  Why should Dorothy imagine they should?  All depended on their common magnanimity, not the magnanimity that pardons faults, but the magnanimity that recognises virtues.  He who gladly kneels with one who thinks largely wide from himself, in so doing draws nearer to the Father of both than he who pours forth his soul in sympathetic torrent only in the company of those who think like himself.  If a man be of the truth, then and only then is he of those who gather with the Lord.

In forms natural to the age and his individual thought, if not altogether in such as I have here put down, Richard thus fashioned his insights as he sauntered home upon Lady, his head above the clouds, and his heart higher than his head—­as it ought to be once or twice a day at least.  Poor indeed is any worldly success compared to a moment’s breathing in divine air, above the region where the miserable word success yet carries a meaning.

CHAPTER LVII.

The skeleton.

The death of the marquis took place in December, long before which time the second marquis of Worcester, ever busy in the king’s affairs, and unable to show himself with safety in England, or there be useful, had gone from Ireland to Paris.

As the country was now a good deal quieter, and there was nothing to detain her in London, and much to draw her to Wyfern, Dorothy resolved to go home, and there, if possible, remain.  Indeed, there was now nothing else she could well do, except visit Mr. Herbert at Llangattock.  But much as she revered and loved the old man, and would have enjoyed his company, she felt now such a longing for activity, that she must go and look after her affairs.  What with the words of the good marquis and her own late experiences and conflicts, Dorothy had gained much enlightenment.  She had learned that well-being is a condition of inward calm, resting upon yet deeper harmonies of being, and resulting in serene activity, the prevention