Mark knew that somehow he must pluck up courage to ask Father Rowley to
let him come and work under him at Chatsea. He was sure that if he could
only make him grasp the spirit in which he would offer himself, the
spirit of complete humility devoid of any kind of thought that he was
likely to be of the least use to the Mission, Father Rowley might accept
his oblation. He would have liked to wait behind after Evensong and
approach the Missioner directly, so that before speaking to Mr. Ogilvie
he might know what chance the offer had of being accepted; but he
decided against this course, because he felt that Father Rowley's
compassion might be embarrassed if he had to refuse his request, a point
of view that was characteristic of the mood roused in him by the sermon.
He went back to sleep for the last time in an Oxford college, profoundly
reassured of the rightness of his action in giving up the scholarship to
Emmett, although, which was characteristic of his new mood, he had by
this time begun to tell himself that he had really done nothing at all
and that probably in any case Emmett would have been the chosen scholar.
If Mark had still any doubts of his behaviour, they would have vanished
when on getting into the train for Shipcot he found himself in an
otherwise empty third-class smoking carriage opposite Father Rowley
himself, who with a small black bag beside him, so small that Mark
wondered how it could possibly contain the night attire of so fat a man,
was sitting back in the corner with a large pipe in his mouth.
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