It was rumoured that the little man was short in his accounts, and had been got out of the way by Gaston Belward.
Archdeacon Varcoe knew the truth, and had said that Gaston's sin was not unpardonable, in spite of a few squires and their dames who declared it was shocking that a man should have such loose ideas, that no good could come to the county from it, and that he would put nonsense into the heads of the common people.

Alice Wingfield was now to hear Gaston's view of the matter.
"So that's it, eh?
Live and let live is doing good?
In that case it is easy to be a saint.

What else could a man do?
You say that I am generous--How?
What have I spent out of my income on these little things?
My income--how did I get it?
I didn't earn it; neither did my father.

Not a stroke have I done for it.

I sit high and dry there in the Court, they sit low there in the village; and you know how they live.
Well, I give away a little money which these people and their fathers earned for my father and me; and for that you say I am doing good, and some other people say I am doing harm--'dangerous charity,' and all that! I say that the little I have done is what is always done where man is most primitive, by people who never heard 'doing good' preached." "We must have names for things, you know," she said.
"I suppose so, where morality and humanity have to be taught as Christian duty, and not as common manhood." "Tell me," she presently said, "about Sproule, the postmaster." "Oh, that?
Well, I will.