the child
some things that he could eat. He is well now; as well as he ever will
be.'

'I did not see the rosebush.'

'Ah, it did not live. Nothing could there.'

'Well, Mr. Pitt, haven't you done your part, as far as this case is
concerned?'

'Have I? Would _you_ stop with that?'

Betty sat very quiet, but internally fidgeted. What did Pitt ask her
these questions for? Why had he taken her on this expedition? She
wished she had not gone; she wished she had not come to England; and
yet she would not be anywhere else at this moment but where she was,
for any possible consideration. She wished Pitt would be different, and
not fill his head with lace-menders and London alleys; and yet--even
so--things might be worse. Suppose Pitt had devoted his energies to
gambling, and absorbed all his interests in hunters and racers. Betty
had known that sort of thing; and now summarily concluded that men must
make themselves troublesome in one way or another. But this particular
turn this man had taken did seem to set him so far off from her!

'What would you do, Mr. Pitt?' she said, with a somewhat weary cadence
in her voice which he could not interpret.

'Look at it, and tell me, from your standpoint.'

'If you took that woman out of those lodgings, there would come
somebody else into them, and you might begin the whole thing over
again. In that way the Duke of Trefoil might give you enough to do for
a lifetime.'

'Well?--the conclusion?'

'How can you ask? Some things are self-evident.'

'What do you think that means: "He that hath two coats, let him impart
to him that hath none"?'

'I don't think it means _that_,' said Betty. 'That you are to give away
all you have, till you haven't left yourself an overcoat.'

'Are you sure? Not if somebody else needed it more? That is the
question. We come back to the--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do
unto you." "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out
devils." How, do you think, can I best do that in the case of Mrs.
Mills and her boy? One thing at a time. Never mind what the Duke of
Trefoil may complicate in the future.'

'Raise the dead!' Betty echoed.

'Ay,' he said. 'There are worse deaths than that of the body.'

Betty paused, but Pitt waited.

'If they are to be kept alive in any sense,' she said at last, 'they
must be taken out of that hole where they are now.'

'And, as you truly suggest that the number of persons wanting such
relief i