It was a bright frosty morning in the edge of winter when at last they
let Mark go to see the minister, and Billy took care that no hint of
the Shafton car should reach his knowledge. Slowly, gravely he escorted
Mark down the street and up the parsonage steps.
The minister was lying on a couch in the living room and there was a
low chair drawn up near by with a book open at the place, and a bit of
fluffy sewing on the low table beside it. Mark looked hungrily about
for the owner of the gold thimble, but there was no sign of either Mrs.
Severn or Marilyn about.
There was a bandage over the minister's eyes. They hadn't told Mark
about that yet.
The minister held out a groping hand with his old sweet smile and
hearty welcoming voice: "Well, son, you've come at last! Beat me to it, didn't you? I'm glad.
That was fair. Young blood you know."
Mark knelt down by the couch with his old friend's hand held fast:
Billy had faded into the landscape out on the front steps somewhere,
and was even now settling down for an extended wait. If this interview
went well he might hope to get a little rest and catch up on sports
sometime soon. It all depended on this.
Mark put up his other hand and touched the bandage: "Father!" he said, "Father!" and broke down "Father, I have sinned--"
he said brokenly.
The minister's arm went lovingly up across the young man's shoulders: "Son, have you told your heavenly Father that?" he asked gently.
"I've tried," said Mark, "I'm not sure that He heard."
"Oh, He heard," said the minister with a ring of joy in his
voice, "While you were a great way off He came to meet you, son."
"You don't know yet," said Mark lifting a white sad face--"
"If you've told Him I'll trust you son. It's up to you whether you tell
me or not."
"It is your right to know, sir. I want you to know. I cannot rest again
until you do."
"Then tell." The minister's hand folded down tenderly over the boy's,
and so kneeling beside the couch Mark told his story: "I must begin by telling you that I have always loved Marilyn."
"I know," said the minister, with a pressure on the hand he covered.
"One day I heard someone telling Mrs. Severn that I was not good enough
for her;"
"I know," said the minister again.
"You know?" said Mark in surprise.
"Yes, go on."
"I went away and thought it over. I felt as if I would die. I was mad
and hurt clear through, but after I thought it over I saw that all she
had said was true. I wasn't good enough. There was a great deal of
pride mixed with it all of course, I've seen that since, but I wasn't
good enough. Nobody was. Lynn is,--wonderful--! But I was just a
common, insignificant nobody, not fit to be her mate. I knew it! I
could see just how things were going too. I saw you didn't realize it,
you nor Mrs. Severn. I knew Marilyn cared, but I thought she didn't
realize it either, and I saw it was up to me. If she wasn't to have to
suffer by being parted from me when she grew older, I must teach her
not to care before she knew she cared. For days I turned it over in my
mind. Many nights I lay awake all night or walked out on the hills,
threshing it all over again. And I saw another thing. I saw that if it
was so hard for me then when I was not much more than a kid it would be
harder for her if I let her grow up caring, and then we had to be
parted, so I decided to make the break. The day I made the decision I
went off in the hills and stayed all day thinking it out. And then I
looked up in the sky and told God I was done with Him. I had prayed and
prayed that He would make a way out of this trouble for me, and He
hadn't done anything about it, and I felt that He was against me too.
So when I had done that I felt utterly reckless. I didn't care what
happened to me, and I decided to go to the bad as fast as I could. I
felt it would be the best way too to make Marilyn get over being fond
of me. So I went down to Monopoly that night and looked up a fellow
that had been coaching the teams for a while and was put out by the
association because he was rotten. He had always made a fuss over me,
wanted to make a big player out of me, and I knew he would be glad to
see me.