With a sigh, Monica turned away, and, with one consent, they hurried after the others, and no more was said. But the elder girl's heart had been roused and awakened, and never again would she drift into her former state of indifference.
The two young fellows, waiting about in the churchyard for Mr. Drury, at length received a message to the effect that he would be detained still longer, and they had better not wait for him. So they, too, strolled down to the Shore Road, where they knew they would eventually come across their friends.
"I'm almost sorry I'm not in your shoes, old man," said Marcus, as he adapted his long, swinging strides to his friend's shorter steps.
"It's a very good thing that you are a little undecided about it," was Roger's somewhat enigmatical reply. "But tell me what you mean?"
"Why, I felt this morning as if I would give anything to go in for medicine, with a view to going abroad; but I know father has set his heart on my taking orders."
"If I remember rightly, the preacher distinctly observed that the service was not to be one of picking and choosing but a case of 'whatsoever.'"
Something unusual about the tone in which Roger made this remark, and a total absence of his usual cynicism, made his friend glance curiously at him, and he realised that a change, undefinable at present, but nevertheless unmistakable, had taken place in Roger Franklyn.
"I say, old chap, I wish with all my heart you would be a 'Whatsoever Christian,'" he said impulsively.
"With God's help I mean to be," was the unexpected reply, as Roger lifted his hat, and glanced upward, as if registering a vow.
"Thank God!" was Marcus' low but fervent response, as he gripped his friend's hand with such force as to make him wince.