"Oh-h!" The agony went out of the pinched little face, a half
smile dawned and she sank into rest.
As Marilyn went home in the dawn with the morning star beginning to
pale, and the birds at their early worship, something in her own heart
was singing too. Above the feeling of awe over standing at the brink of
the river and seeing a little soul go wavering out, above even the
wonder that she had been called to point the way, there sang in her
soul a song of jubilation that Mark was exonerated from shame and
disgrace. Whatever others thought, whatever she personally would always
have believed, it still was great that God had given her this to make
her know that her inner vision about it had been right. Perhaps,
sometime, in the days that were to come, Mark would tell her about it,
but there was time enough for that. Mark would perhaps come to see her
this morning. She somehow felt sure that at least he would come to say
he was glad she had stayed with his mother. It was like Mark to do
that. He never let any little thing that was done for him or his pass
unnoticed.
But the morning passed and Mark did not come. The only place that Mark
went was to see Billy.
"Billy, old man," he said, sitting down by the edge of the bed where
Billy was drowsing the early morning away, just feeling the bed, and
sensing Saxy down there making chicken broth, and knowing that the
young robins in the apple tree under the window were grown up and flown
away. "Billy, I can't keep my promise to you after all. I've got to go
away. Sorry, kid, but she'll come to see you and I want you to tell her
for me all about it. I'm not forgetting it, Kid, either, and you'll
know, all the rest of my life, you and I are buddies! Savvy,
Kid?"
Billy looked at Mark with big understanding eyes. There was sadness and
hunger and great self control in that still white face that he
worshipped so devotedly. All was not well with his hero yet. It came to
him vaguely that perhaps Mark too had even yet something to learn, the
kind of thing that was only learned by going through fire. He struggled
for words to express himself, but all he could find were: "I say, Mark, why'n't'tya get it off'n yer chest? It's great!"
Perhaps there wouldn't have been another human in Sabbath Valley,
except perhaps it might have been Marilyn who would have understood
that by this low growled suggestion Billy was offering confession of
sin as a remedy for his friend's ailment of soul, but Mark looked at
him keenly, almost tenderly for a long minute, and shook his head, his
face taking on a grayer, more hopeless look as he said: "I can't, Kid. It's too late!"