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 seemed to have swept suddenly round the silver planet in companionship with a light mist from the sea,--a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew.