"I can't stay to explain 'why' now; but if you try to think you'll
understand why."

"Mother, if I don't have any gas at all, will you sit with me in the
dark for a little while, a tiny little while, and stroke my forehead
where I bumped it on the knob of the bed? I really did bump it quite
hard--I forgot to tell you that. I forgot to tell you because when it
was you I was so excited that I forgot."

"Now listen, Mark. Mother wants you to be a very good boy and turn over
and go to sleep. Father is very worried and very tired, and the Bishop
is coming tomorrow."

"Will he wear a hat like the Bishop who came last Easter? Why is he
coming?"

"No darling, he's not that kind of bishop. I can't explain to you why
he's coming, because you wouldn't understand; but we're all very
anxious, and you must be good and brave and unselfish. Now kiss me and
turn over."

Mark flung his arms round his mother's neck, and thrilled by a sudden
desire to sacrifice himself murmured that he would go to sleep in the
dark.

"In the quite dark," he offered, dipping down under the clothes so as to
be safe by the time the protecting candle-light wavered out along the
passage and the soft closing of his mother's door assured him that come
what might there was only a wall between him and her.