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.