“I’ve found another Whitaker of the year before,” it proclaimed.  “I’ll read that, and you’d better read this year’s.  If by any chance I did win this scholarship, I shouldn’t like to think I’d taken an unfair advantage of you, Lidderdale.”

“Thanks very much, Emmett,” said Mark.  “But I think I’ll have a shot at getting to bed early.”

“Ah, you’re not worrying,” said Emmett gloomily, retiring from the window.

When Mark was sitting by the fire in his room and thinking over the dinner with the Principal and poor Emmett’s stammering and poor Emmett’s words in the quad afterwards, he began to imagine what it would mean to poor Emmett if he failed to win the scholarship.  Mark had not been so successful himself in these examinations as to justify a grand self-confidence; but he could not regard Emmett as a dangerous competitor.  Had he the right in view of Emmett’s handicap to accept this scholarship at his expense?  To be sure, he might urge on his own behalf that without it he should himself be debarred from Oxford.  What would the loss of it mean?  It would mean, first of all, that Mr. Ogilvie would make the financial effort to maintain him for three years as a commoner, an effort which he could ill afford to make and which Mark had not the slightest intention of allowing him to make.  It would mean, next, that he should have to occupy himself during the years before his ordination with some kind of work among people.  He obviously could not go on reading theology at Wych-on-the-Wold until he went to Glastonbury.  Such an existence, however attractive, was no preparation for the active life of a priest.  It would mean, thirdly, a great disappointment to his friend and patron, and considering the social claims of the Church of England it would mean a handicap for himself.  There was everything to be said for winning this scholarship, nothing to be said against it on the grounds of expediency.  On the grounds of expediency, no, but on other grounds?  Should he not be playing the better part if he allowed Emmett to win?  No doubt all that was implied in the necessity for him to win a scholarship was equally implied in the necessity for Emmett to win one.  It was obvious that Emmett was no better off than himself; it was obvious that Emmett was competing in a kind of despair.  Mark remembered how a few minutes ago his rival had offered him this year’s Whitaker, keeping for himself last year’s almanack.  Looked at from the point of view of Emmett who really believed that something might be gained at this eleventh hour from a study of the more recent volume, it had been a fine piece of self-denial.  It showed that Emmett had Christian talents which surely ought not to be wasted because he was handicapped by a stammer.