"I couldn't use yours, you know."
Mark gazed abstractedly at the cathedral; then he turned to his brother.
"Look here—I give it to you. Do what you like with it. I can't preach it myself. It's not b-b-bad."
He paused as the stammer seized him. "Not bad?" echoed Archibald. "Why it's splendid—splendid!"
"And why shouldn't I help you—my brother?" His voice softened, as he stretched out his thin hand and touched Archibald's mighty arm. "Take it!"
Archie hesitated, staring inquiringly at Mark. Mark had always been such a stickler for plain-dealing. Then he remembered what Billy had said: "Take what he gives, generously, and so you will best help him to play his part in life."
Mark, meantime, was reflecting that he should like to read in Betty's face the recognition of talents which he was not allowed to proclaim to the world.
"Take it," he repeated. "And, look here, I shall sit beside Betty Kirtling, and afterwards I shall tell her that I wrote it and persuaded you to preach it. No one else shall know."
Archie, unable to determine the ethics of the matter, sensible in a dull, inarticulate way that he ought to say NO, said—YES. His own sermon was inadequate; there was not time to prepare another; and he lacked the power of interpreting the message of those grey stones yonder. This and more flitted through a mind large enough but somewhat conventionally furnished.
"But what has Betty Kirtling to do with it?" he concluded heavily. "Why tell her? If this is to be between you and me, Mark—why tell her?"