“Billy, old man,” he said, sitting down by the edge of the bed where Billy was drowsing the early morning away, just feeling the bed, and sensing Saxy down there making chicken broth, and knowing that the young robins in the apple tree under the window were grown up and flown away. “Billy, I can't keep my promise to you after all. I've got to go away. Sorry, kid, but she'll come to see you and I want you to tell her for me all about it. I'm not forgetting it, Kid, either, and you'll know, all the rest of my life, you and I are buddies! Savvy, Kid?”
Billy looked at Mark with big understanding eyes. There was sadness and hunger and great self control in that still white face that he worshipped so devotedly. All was not well with his hero yet. It came to him vaguely that perhaps Mark too had even yet something to learn, the kind of thing that was only learned by going through fire. He struggled for words to express himself, but all he could find were:
“I say, Mark, why'n't'tya get it off'n yer chest? It's great!”
Perhaps there wouldn't have been another human in Sabbath Valley, except perhaps it might have been Marilyn who would have understood that by this low growled suggestion Billy was offering confession of sin as a remedy for his friend's ailment of soul, but Mark looked at him keenly, almost tenderly for a long minute, and shook his head, his face taking on a grayer, more hopeless look as he said:
“I can't, Kid. It's too late!”
Billy closed his eyes for a moment. He felt it wasn't quite square to see into his friend's soul that way when he was off his guard, but he understood. He had passed that way himself. It came to him that nothing he could say would make any difference. He would have liked to tell of his own experience in the court room and how he had suddenly known that all his efforts to right his wrong had been failures, that there was only One who could do it, but there were no words in a boy's vocabulary to say a thing like that. It sounded unreal. It had to be felt, and he found his heart kept saying over and over as he lay there waiting with closed eyes for Mark to speak: “Oh, God! Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself? Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself?” He wondered if Miss Lynn couldn't have shown Mark if he had only gone and talked it over with her. But Mark said it was too late, “Well, Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself, then? Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself, God,—please!”
Mark got up with a long sigh:
“Well, s'long, Kid, till I see you again. And I won't forget Kid, you know I won't forget! And Kid, I'm leaving my gun with you. I know you'll take good care of it and not let it do any damage. You might need it you know to take care of your Aunt, or—or—Miss Severn—or!”
“Sure!” said Billy with shining eyes clasping the weapon that had been Mark's proud possession for several years. “Aw Gee! Ya hadn't oughtta give me this! You might need it yourself.”
“No, Kid, I'd rather feel that you have it. I want to leave someone here to kind of take my place—watching—you know. There'll be times—!”