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.”

“What is the subject?”

“I have not thought of a title yet; but you may call it ’Universal Charity,’ or (better perhaps) ‘The Charity due to wicked persons.’”

“You mean Hetty?” She limped close to him.  “Hetty may have done wickedly, but she is not a wicked person, as you might have discovered had you let Universal Charity alone and practised it in particular, for once, by going to visit her.  It is now close on four months that you and Charles have been home, and from here to Lincoln is no such great distance.”

“You are a sturdy champion,” he answered, eyeing her up and down.  “As a matter of fact you are right, though you assert it rashly.  How are you sure that I have not visited Hetty, seeing that three times I have been absent from home and for some days together?”