ns of a wealthy
home, when circumstances would have made him once more the London
artisan, and in doing so would have added harshness to his natural
temper; when he would no longer find it worth while to preserve the
semblance of gentle breeding? Was there strength in her to endure that?

Presently he turned, and she heard him speak her name. She raised her
eyes with a half-smile of abashment. He approached and took her hand.

'Have you thought what this means to me?' he asked, in a much softer
voice.

'I know it must be very hard.'

'I don't mean in that way. I'm not thinking of the change back to
poverty. It's my work in New Wanley; my splendid opportunity of helping
on Socialism. Think, just when everything is fairly started! You can't
feel it as I do, I suppose. You haven't the same interest in the work. I
hoped once you would have had.'

Adela remembered what her brother had said, but she could not allude to
it. To question was useless. She thought of a previous occasion on which
he had justified himself when accused.

He still held her hand.

'Which would do the most good with this money, he or I?'

'We cannot ask that question.'

'Yes, we can. We ought to. At all events, _I_ ought to. Think what it
means. In my hands the money is used for the good of a suffering class,
for the good of the whole country in the end. He would just spend it
on himself, like other rich men. It isn't every day that a man of my
principles gets the means of putting them into practice. Eldon is well
enough off; long ago he's made up his mind to the loss of Wanley. It's
like robbing poor people just to give money where it isn't wanted.'

She withdrew her hand, saying coldly:

'I can understand your looking at it in this way. But we can't help it.'

'Why can't we?' His voice grew disagreeable in its effort to be
insinuating. 'It seems to me that we can and ought to help it. It would
be quite different if you and I had just been enjoying ourselves and
thinking of no one else.' He thought it a skilful stroke to unite
their names thus. 'We haven't done anything of the kind; we've denied
ourselves all sorts of things just to be able to spend more on New
Wanley. You know what I've always said, that I hold the money in trust
for the Union. Isn't it true? I don't feel justified in giving it
up. The end is too important. The good of thousands, of hundreds of
thousands, is at stake.'

Adela looked him in the face searchingly.

'But