nerously,
but for all that we cannot cope with such distress as there is to-day in
Medchester. I am secretary for one of the distribution societies, and
I have seen things which are enough to sadden a man for life, only
during the last few days."

"You have seen people--really hungry?" she asked, with something like
timidity in her face.

He laughed bitterly.

"That we see every moment of the time we spend down amongst them," he
answered. "I have seen worse things. I have seen the sapping away of
character--men become thieves and women worse--to escape from
starvation. That, I think, is the greatest tragedy of all. It makes
one shudder when one thinks that on the shoulders of many people some
portion of the responsibility at any rate for these things must rest."

Her lips quivered. She emptied the contents of a gold chain purse into
her hands.

"It is we who are wicked, Mr. Brooks," she said, "who spend no end of
money and close our ears to all this. Do take this, will you; can it go
to some of the women you know, and the children? There are only five or
six pounds there, but I shall talk to mamma. We will send you a
cheque."

He took the money without hesitation.

"I am very glad," he said, earnestly, "that you have given me this, that
you have felt that you wanted to give it me. I hope you won't think too
badly of me for coming over here to help you spend a pleasant evening,
and talking at all of such miserable things."

"Badly!" she repeated. "No; I shall never be able to thank you enough
for telling me what you have done. It makes one feel almost wicked to
be sitting here, and wearing jewelry, and feeling well off, spending
money on whatever you want, and to think that there are people starving.
How they must hate us."

"It is the wonderful part of it," he answered. "I do not believe that
they do. I suppose it is a sort of fatalism--the same sort of thing,
only much less ignoble, as the indifference which keeps our rich people
contented and deaf to this terribly human cry."

"You are young," she said, looking at him, "to be so much interested in
such serious things."

"It is my blood, I suppose," he answered. "My father was a police-court
missionary, and my mother the matron of a pauper hospital."

"They are both dead, are they not?" she asked, softly.

"Many years ago," he answered.

Lady Caroom and Lord Arranmore came in together. A certain unusual
seriousness in Sybil's face was manifest.

"Y