He began to declaim Mark's peroration in a slow, impressive voice, the kind of voice which seems to fill the corners of the soul with echoes at once strange and familiar. The late Mr. Gladstone possessed such a voice. Mark stared at his brother, absorbing every note and gesture. What aptitudes were his for such a part. Listening to him, the younger brother forgot that he had written the phrases which fell with sonorous significance upon the silence of the fields. He was able to judge of what he had done, as if he were hearing the sermon for the first time. Playwrights experience this bitter-sweet pleasure. Lines laboured at for many an hour, become in the mouth of a great actor or actress so changed, so sublimated by the touch of genius, as to prove unrecognisable, even as a child of peasants adopted by persons of rank may so dazzle the eyes of its mother that it appears for the moment as a stranger. And who shall interpret that same mother's feelings when she sees lavished upon her darling gifts beyond her power to bestow—gifts which serve as symbols of her loss and another's gain?
Mark Samphire listened to his brother with ears lacerated by envy; and because devils tore him he was the more determined to exorcise them, in the hope that what he did and said might hide what he felt. When Archie finished, the younger brother sprang up and seized his hand.
"From the bottom of my soul," he exclaimed, "I believe that this voice of yours will be heard not only in Westchester, but in every cathedral in England."
Archie answered, dully, "If you had my voice, Mark——"
"Ah!" gasped Mark, "if—if——" He paused, and ended quietly, "We need not speak of that."
"You could read this sermon."
"Even that is denied me. I can read the lessons or anything else save what I write myself. Oh, I have tried and tried. Always the lump comes in my throat—and I hear the laugh of that girl. You remember?"
Archie nodded, betraying his sympathy with a shudder. "It was awful," he said, "awful."
He handed the sheets of manuscript to Mark, adding, "It has helped me enormously. I will avail myself of some of your ideas."
"You will redrape my ideas with your words."