In truth they kept harking back to the text, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses. . . ." He had chosen it with many searchings of heart, for he knew that if he preached this sermon it would exasperate his father. Had he any right, knowing this, to preach it from his father's pulpit? After balancing the _pro's_ and _contra's_, he decided that this was a scruple which his Christian duty outweighed. He was not used to look back upon a decision once taken: he had no thought now of changing his mind, but the prospect of a breach with his father unsettled him. While he pondered, stabbing the turf with his heel, Molly came limping along the garden-path. Her face was white and drawn. She had been writing for two hours at her father's dictation, and came now for rest to the seat which she and Hetty had in former days made their favourite resort. Seeing it occupied, she paused in the outer shade of the great branches. "You are thinking out your sermon?" she asked, smiling. He nodded. "You seem tired," he remarked, eyeing her; but he did not rise or pick up his Bible to make room for her. "A little," she confessed; "and my ears are hot. But Charles very good-naturedly left his _De Oratore_--on which I heard him say he was engaged--to relieve me. Johnny Whitelamb had to finish colouring a map." "I don't think Charles needs much persuasion just now to leave his studies." "He will not require them if he is to be an Irish squire." "You count upon his choosing that?" John's frown grew deeper. "Not if you dissuade him, Jack." "I have not even discussed it with him. Once or twice on our way down he seemed to be feeling his way to a confidence and at the last moment to fight shy. No doubt he knows my opinion well enough. 'What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' But why should my opinion have so much weight with him?" For a moment Molly considered her brother's cold and handsome young face. She put out a hand, plucked a twig from a low drooping bough, and peeling the gummy rind, quoted softly: "'Why do you cross me in this exigent?' 'I do not cross you; but I will do so.'" "If I remember," mused John, "that is what Shakespeare makes Octavius say to Mark Antony before Pharsalia." She nodded. "Do you know that you always put me in mind of Octavius. You are so good-looking, and have the same bloodless way of following your own path as if you carried all our fates. Sometimes I think you _do_ carry them." "I thank you." He made her a mock bow. "And I still think it was kind of Charles to come to my rescue; for I was tired." She glanced at the seat and he picked up his book. "No; you are composing a sermon and I will not interrupt you. But you must know that father expected you to help him this morning, and was put out at hearing that you had walked off." "He and I have not agreed of late, and are likely to agree still less if I preach this sermon--as I shall."