He stood upon the threshold, staring. Mark smiled.
"Will you do me a favour?" he said, as the nurse slipped from the room. "I have not seen," he paused for a moment, nervously, "m-m-my b-b-brother yet. Will you ask him to c-c-come to me?"
A year later Pynsent wrote to Jim Corrance from Parham Castle.
"Parham has gained far more than Literature has lost. Here, Mark is the power behind the throne. À propos, I have painted Archibald on his throne in the sanctuary of Parham Cathedral. Everything, however, is subordinated to the face, upon which a ray of light falls obliquely. The expression you will hardly recognise, till you come here. When it was done, Archibald stared at it for many minutes. Then he said in his rather heavy way: 'It's a portrait; you have looked beneath these.' He indicated the robes. The man looks years older. But Mark has got back his youthful appearance, his high spirits, his keenness, his power of getting enjoyment out of what most of us would consider tedious and disagreeable. As his brother's secretary and confidential adviser, he knows that he has found himself. Archibald reaps all the honour and glory: and the sheaves are heavy. If praise, as Keble says, be our penance here, the Bishop of Parham will wear a hair shirt till he dies. He tells everybody, with pathetic earnestness, that his brother is the senior partner in the firm—and, of course, nobody believes him. Mark sticks to his red tie, and hunts once a week with Kirtling's hounds. He stammers worse than ever when he gets excited. It may seem amazing to you—it is certainly amazing to me—but Mark has the look of a happy, healthy man; and his nephew, so curiously like Betty, adores him."
Jim showed this letter to his mother.
"All the same," he remarked; "Mark ought to have married Betty. I am sure of that."
Mrs. Corrance laid down her embroidery. She and Jim were keeping house together: it being agreed that the winter should be spent in town and the summer in the country.
"I am not sure," she answered slowly. "I used to pray that Betty would marry you, but how many have profited by my 'losing of my prayers'? David Ross might make a guess."
Jim flushed. Only his mother knew that he had contributed large sums of money and much time to the Bishop of Poplar's East End enterprises.
"My dear son," Mrs. Corrance touched his hand with her delicate fingers, "try to believe that Betty died in order that the three men who loved her might live."