reet he had heard tales of
wives who were beaten by their husbands and now he supposed that his own
mother was going to be beaten. Suddenly he heard her crying. This was
too much for him; he sprang from his hiding place and ran to put his
arms round her in protection.

"Mother, mother, don't cry. You are bad, you are bad," he told his
father. "You are wicked and bad to make her cry."

"Have you been in the room all this time?" his father asked.

Mark did not even bother to nod his head, so intent was he upon
consoling his mother. She checked her emotion when her son put his arms
round her neck, and whispered to him not to speak. It was almost dark in
the study now, and what little light was still filtering in at the
window from the grey nightfall was obscured by the figure of the
Missioner gazing out at the lantern spire of his new church. There was a
tap at the door, and Mrs. Lidderdale snatched up the volume that Mark
had let fall upon the floor when he emerged from the curtains, so that
when Dora came in to light the gas and say that tea was ready, nothing
of the stress of the last few minutes was visible. The Missioner was
looking out of the window at his new church; his wife and son were
contemplating the picture of an impervious Chinaman suspended in a cage
where he could neither stand nor sit nor lie.

CHAPTER V

PALM SUNDAY

Mark's dream from which he woke to wonder if the end of the world was at
hand had been a shadow cast by coming events. So far as the world of
Lima Street was concerned, it was the end of it. The night after that
scene in his father's study, which made a deeper impression on him than
anything before that date in his short life, his mother came to sleep in
the nursery with him, to keep him company so that he should not be
frightened any more, she offered as the explanation of her arrival. But
Mark, although of course he never said so to her, was sure that she had
come to him to be protected against his father.

Mark did not overhear any more discussions between his parents, and he
was taken by surprise when one day a week after his mother had come to
sleep in his room, she asked him how he should like to go and live in
the country. To Mark the country was as remote as Paradise, and at first
he was inclined to regard the question as rhetorical to which a
conventional reply was expected. If anybody had asked him how he should
like to go to Heaven, he would have answered that he s