ecessary to her, you ought
in common justice to have supplied the want you created."

"All this trouble arose when I was on my wedding-trip."

"I think you ought to have taken her with you."

"Sir!"

"I think so. It was hard to be suddenly deprived of every social
pleasure and refinement and sent back to a fisher's cottage to cure
fish, and knot nets, and knit fishing-shirts. How could you have borne
it?"

"Mr. Farrar, such a comparison is an insult."

"I mean no insult; far from it. Even my office would give me no right
to insult you. I only wish to awaken your conscience. Even yet it may
take up your abandoned duty."

"Perhaps you do not know that I endeavoured last week to see Denas. I
wrote to her. I asked her to come and see me. I told her I wanted to
talk with her about Mr. Tresham. She did not even answer my letter. I
consider myself clear of the ungrateful girl--and as I am busy this
morning I will be obliged to you, sir, to excuse my further
attendance. Take the sovereign with you; give it to the poor."

"God will feed His poor, madam."

She made a little scornful laugh and asked: "Do you really inquire
into the character of all the money your church receives?"

"No further, madam, than you inquire into the character of the
visitors you receive. Plenty of thieves and seducers are in every
society, but it is not until a man is publicly known to be a thief or
a seducer that we are justified in refusing him a courteous reception.
A great deal of money is the wages of sin, and it passes through our
hands and we are not stained by its contact; but if I give you a piece
of gold and say, 'It is the price of a slain soul, or a slain body, or
a slain reputation,' would you like to put it in your purse, or buy
bread for your children with it, or take it to church and offer it to
God? I wish you good-morning, Mrs. Burrell."

And Elizabeth bowed and stood watching him until the door was closed
and she was alone with the coin. It offended her. It had been the
cause of a most humiliating visit. She looked at it with scorn and
loathing. A servant entered with a card; she took it eagerly, and
pointing to the money said, "Carry it to Mr. Tresham's room and lay it
upon the dressing-table." She was grateful to get it out of her sight,
and very glad indeed to see the visitor who had given her such a
prompt opportunity for ridding her eyes of its gleaming presence.

Thus it is that not only present but absent persona