Archibald had wit enough to see and feel the point. He saw, too, that Mark was moved.
"You have an idea. I should like to hear it, although——"
"Although I am without the pale, you would say. Archie, if you would descend from your pulpit and walk in the shadows with me for a little while—and if then you could set forth my doubts and perplexities, how many, think you, of your congregation would not say: 'I, too, have wandered in those blind alleys.' And having pierced the crust of their indifference with your sympathy and insight, if then you could transmit the light which seems to have always blazed on you, this Easter would indeed be a Day of Resurrection to hundreds who now lie cold and dead." He paused, gazed keenly at Archibald, and continued: "But you—you cannot do that. You have not trod the wilderness...." He covered his face with his hand.
"It is true," said Archibald, in a low voice, "that I do lack an experience common, I fear, to hundreds of my parishioners. And if I cannot open their hearts, and you can, lend me your key."
Mark was silent. Then, as before, the sense that he had envied and hated this once dearly beloved brother made him generous.
"I will write down and send what is in my mind. No—don't thank me!"
He began to talk briskly of other things. Presently Mary came in and reminded him to take his medicine. Archibald had not seen her before. Twice during the previous summer Betty and he had come to Weybridge, but each day had been spent upon the river. Mark went into his bedroom, and Mary disappeared, to reappear a moment later with a tea-tray. Archibald was alone with her for a couple of minutes. She arranged the tea-things with quick, deft fingers, displaying the admirable lines of her figure as she moved to and fro, now standing upright, now bending down. In the soft light of the spring afternoon she looked charming, with the inexpressible freshness of youth and health. Archibald addressed her.
"You are," he was about to say "Mary," but changed it to "Miss Dew."
"Oh, no, I am Mary," she replied, smiling. "Your brother calls me 'Honeydew.'"
"My brother calls you a ministering angel."