pray for his soul."

"He was struck dead for his blasphemy. He is in Hell. Of what use to
pray for his soul?"

"But Esther while he was falling, even in that second, he had time to
repent. Live, Esther. Live to pray for him."

Mark was overcome with a desire to laugh at the stilted way in which he
was talking, and, from the suppression of the desire, to laugh wildly at
everything in the scene, and not least at the comic death of Will
Starling, even at the corpse itself lying with a broken neck at his
feet. By an effort of will he regained control of his muscles, and the
tension of the last half hour finding no relief in bodily relaxation was
stamped ineffaceably upon his mind to take its place with that afternoon
in his father's study at the Lima Street Mission which first inspired
him with dread of the sexual relation of man to woman, a dread that was
now made permanent by what he had endured on the bough of that yew-tree.

Thanks to Mark's intervention the business was explained without
scandal; nobody doubted that the squire of Rushbrooke Grange died a
martyr to his dislike of ivy's encroaching upon ancient images. Esther's
stormy soul took refuge in a convent, and there it seemed at peace.

CHAPTER XV

THE SCHOLARSHIP

The encounter between Esther and Will Starling had the effect of
strengthening Mark's intention to be celibate. He never imagined himself
as a possible protagonist in such a scene; but the impression of that
earlier encounter between his mother and father which gave him a horror
of human love was now renewed. It was renewed, moreover, with the light
of a miracle to throw it into high relief. And this miracle could not be
explained away as a coincidence, but was an old-fashioned miracle that
required no psychical buttressing, a hard and fast miracle able to
withstand any criticism. It was a pity that out of regard for Esther he
could not publish it for the encouragement of the faithful and the
confusion of the unbelievers.

The miracle of St. Mary Magdalene's intervention on his seventeenth
birthday was the last violent impression of Mark's boyhood.
Thenceforward life moved placidly through the changing weeks of a
country calendar until the date of the scholarship examination held by
the group of colleges that contained St. Mary's, the college he aspired
to enter, but for which he failed to win even an exhibition. Mr. Ogilvie
was rather glad, for he had been worried how Mark was going