d. The little
pale-faced man who had first held the position disappeared one night,
and in another twenty-four hours a new one was in his place. Many
stories had gone about. It was rumoured that the little man was short
in his accounts, and had been got out of the way by Gaston Belward.
Archdeacon Varcoe knew the truth, and had said that Gaston's sin was not
unpardonable, in spite of a few squires and their dames who declared it
was shocking that a man should have such loose ideas, that no good could
come to the county from it, and that he would put nonsense into the
heads of the common people. Alice Wingfield was now to hear Gaston's
view of the matter.

"So that's it, eh? Live and let live is doing good? In that case it
is easy to be a saint. What else could a man do? You say that I am
generous--How? What have I spent out of my income on these little
things? My income--how did I get it? I didn't earn it; neither did my
father. Not a stroke have I done for it. I sit high and dry there in the
Court, they sit low there in the village; and you know how they live.
Well, I give away a little money which these people and their fathers
earned for my father and me; and for that you say I am doing good, and
some other people say I am doing harm--'dangerous charity,' and all
that! I say that the little I have done is what is always done where man
is most primitive, by people who never heard 'doing good' preached."

"We must have names for things, you know," she said.

"I suppose so, where morality and humanity have to be taught as
Christian duty, and not as common manhood."

"Tell me," she presently said, "about Sproule, the postmaster."

"Oh, that? Well, I will. The first time I entered the post-office I saw
there was something on the man's mind. A youth of twenty-three oughtn't
to look as he did--married only a year or two also, with a pretty wife
and child. I used to talk to them a good deal, and one day I said to
him: 'You look seedy; what's the matter?' He flushed, and got nervous.
I made up my mind it was money. If I had been here longer, I should have
taken him aside and talked to him like a father. As it was, things slid
along. I was up in town, and here and there. One evening as I came back
from town I saw a nasty-looking Jew arrive. The little postmaster met
him, and they went away together. He was in the scoundrel's hands;
had been betting, and had borrowed first from the Jew, then from the
Government. The next e