e, to his own
satisfaction, of the vast wealth which, like a huge golden mill-stone,
hung round his neck, dragging him down to the grave? Such poor people as
he had met with during his tramp seemed fairly contented with their lot;
he, at any rate, had heard no complaints of poverty from them. On the
contrary, they had shown an independence of thought and freedom of life
which was wholly incompatible with the mere desire of money. He could
put a five-pound note in an envelope and post it anonymously to Matt
Peke at the "Trusty Man" as a slight return for his kindness, but he was
quite sure that though Matt might be pleased enough with the money he
would equally be puzzled, and not entirely satisfied in his mind as to
whether he was doing right to accept and use it. It would probably be
put in a savings bank for a "rainy day."

"It is the hardest thing in the world to do good with money!" he mused,
sorrowfully. "Of course if I were to say this to the unthinking
majority, they would gape upon me and exclaim--'Hard to do good! Why,
there's nothing so easy! There are thousands of poor,--there are the
hospitals--the churches!' True,--but the thousands of _real_ poor are
not so easily found! There are thousands, ay, millions of 'sham' poor.
But the _real_ poor, who never ask for anything,--who would not know how
to write a begging letter, and who would shrink from writing it even if
they did know--who starve patiently, suffer uncomplainingly, and die
resignedly--these are as difficult to meet with as diamonds in a coal
mine. As for hospitals, do I not know how many of them pander to the
barbarous inhumanity of vivisection!--and have I not experienced to the
utmost dregs of bitterness, the melting of cash through the hands of
secretaries and under-secretaries, and general Committee-ism, and Red
Tape-ism, while every hundred thousand pounds bestowed on these
necessary institutions turns out in the end to be a mere drop in the sea
of incessant demand, though the donors may possibly purchase a
knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage, in return for their gifts!
And the churches!--my God!--as Madame Roland said of Liberty, what
crimes are committed in Thy Name!"

He looked up at the sky through the square opening of the shed, and saw
the moon, now changed in appearance and surrounded by a curious luminous
halo like the nimbus with which painters encircle the head of a saint.
It was a delicate aureole of prismatic radiance, and s