The more I saw of Marc the better I liked him. Every day I respected and admired him more. I secretly made him the model which I did all I could to copy. In every situation which troubled and puzzled me in my character of schoolboy, I would ask myself the question, “Now in my place what would Marc do?” and that decided me.

One night when my father was reading his newspaper in the dining-room, I sat beside my mother talking quietly to her, and, as was my wont, extolling my hero Marc: for the hundredth time did I draw his picture in vivid word-painting for my mother’s edification. She listened as usual and smiled. Presently I noticed that she began looking about her as if she had lost something. She searched in her work-basket, on the floor, in the table drawers, and at last she tapped her forehead and said: “To be sure! I remember now, I must have left them in the garden.”

“What is it, mamma?” I asked.

“My scissors; I went into the garden this afternoon and was working there. I must have left them on the bench, or perhaps they fell under it.”

She turned to go out of the room; as she did so I followed softly, and without her seeing me I opened the door which led from the corridor into the garden and went out. It was very dark. I saw little squares of light thrown through the kitchen window on the gravel; and that seemed to be the only light I could see anywhere. There was no moon, and no stars. I hesitated for a moment, one moment only, and then I said to myself, “What would Marc do? He would go and find his mother’s scissors, I am sure; I will go then: yes, I will certainly go.” But as I made an uncertain and trembling step forward, my courage almost forsook me:............