She thought of the old man staggering alone up the dusty hill under his unwelcome burden.
He himself was looking down at his new clothes in a kind of confusion.
Suddenly he said under his breath, 'And for what ?--because I said what every educated man in Europe knows to be true ?' 'Father,' said Eleanor, longing to express some poor word of comfort and respect, 'you have suffered greatly--you will suffer--but it is not for yourself.' He shook his head.
'Madame, you see a man dying of hunger and thirst! He cannot cheat himself with fine words.

He starves!' She stared at him, startled--partly understanding.
'For forty-two years,' he said, in a low, pathetic voice, 'have I received my Lord--day after day--without a break.

And now "they have taken Him away--and I know not where they have laid Him!"' Nothing could be more desolate than tone and look.

Eleanor understood.

She had seen this hunger before.