ay. In going
to Hebsworth I lost my hat, and I had not enough money of my own to buy
another; I had to change the note--that was the temptation--I will
return it.--But for this work here, I might by now have been in the
workhouse. Try, sir, to forgive my baseness; I cannot forgive myself.'

Dagworthy turned his face away.

'Well,' he said, with a wave of the hand, 'all that's too late.'

'Sir,' Hood pursued, spurred by foresight of penury perhaps as much as
by dread of having to explain his dismissal at home, for penury had been
his relentless foe through life Sir, is it in vain to ask you to give me
another chance? I am not a dishonest man; never before has such a
temptation come to me, and surely never would again. Will you--I entreat
you to think what it means--at my age--my wife--I ought to be content
with thanking you for having spared me--how few would have done that!
Let me continue to serve you--a lower salary--if it be ever so
little--till I have regained your confidence--'

Dagworthy was drumming with his fingers on the desk. Not for an instant
did he falter in his purpose, but it gave him pleasure to be thus prayed
to. The employer of labour is not as a rule troubled with a lively
imagination; a pity, for it would surely gratify him to feel in its
fulness at times his power of life and death. Native defect and force of
habit render it a matter of course that a small population should eat or
starve at his pleasure; possibly his resolution in seasons of strike is
now and then attributable to awakening of insight and pleasure in
prolonging his role of hunger-god. Dagworthy appreciated his victim's
despair all the more that it made present to him the wretchedness that
would fall on Emily. Think not that the man was unashamed. With
difficulty he could bring himself to meet Hood's look. But self-contempt
may well consist with perseverance in gratification of ignoble
instincts.

When Hood ceased, there came this reply.

'I shall not grant what you ask, simply because it is against my
principles. I let you off, for it would do me no good to punish you, and
certainly, as regards yourself, the lesson will be enough. But I can't
keep you in my employ, so we'll talk no more about it. You were going to
take your holiday from the end of this week, I think? Very well, let it
be supposed that you begin to-day instead, and in a day or two write me
a note giving up your place.'

This was not yielding on Dagworthy's par