"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:
Billy closed his eyes for a moment. He felt it wasn't quite square to see into his friend's soul that way when he was off his guard, but he understood. He had passed that way himself. It came to him that nothing he could say would make any difference. He would have liked to tell of his own experience in the court room and how he had suddenly known that all his efforts to right his wrong had been failures, that there was only One who could do it, but there were no words in a boy's vocabulary to say a thing like that. It sounded unreal. It had to be _felt_, and he found his heart kept saying over and over as he lay there waiting with closed eyes for Mark to speak: "Oh, God! Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself? Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself?" He wondered if Miss Lynn couldn't have shown Mark if he had only gone and talked it over with her. But Mark said it was too late, "Well, Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself, then? Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself, God,--_please!_"
"Well, s'long, Kid, till I see you again. And I won't forget Kid, you know I won't forget! And Kid, I'm leaving my gun with you. I know you'll take good care of it and not let it do any damage. You might need it you know to take care of your Aunt, or--or--Miss Severn--or!"
"Sure!" said Billy with shining eyes clasping the weapon that had been Mark's proud possession for several years. "Aw Gee! Ya hadn't oughtta give me this! You might need it yourself."
"No, Kid, I'd rather feel that you have it. I want to leave someone here to kind of take my place--watching--you know. There'll be times--!"
"Sure!" said Billy, a kind of glory overspreading his thin eager face. "_Aw Gee!_ Mark!"
And long after Mark had gone, and the sound of his purring engine had died away in the distance, Billy lay back with the weapon clasped to his heart, and a weird kind of rhythm repeating itself over and over somewhere in his spirit: "Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself, God? Why'n'tchoo show him Yerself? You will! I'll bet You _will_! yet!"