Habituated from his childhood to respect the English as a superior race, David Morpeth had suffered himself to be perhaps unduly crushed by that aristocracy of colour which he had so long reverenced. He had bent the knee before the prejudice against those of mixed blood, conscious of having neither the will nor the power to contend against it. His life therefore had flowed into other channels. A solitary man, he had attached himself to the domiciled community with all the fervour of a true vocation. But for occasional friendly souls like Mrs. Fellowes, he had hitherto experienced a great loneliness. He had begun life in Calcutta attached to a wealthy merchant firm, and by virtue of his high character, was eventually received as a valued partner. When he retired from active business, he elected to make his home in an old family house in Madras which had long been let, and around which was a colony of his own people. Freyville, Vepery, soon became a centre of kindly offices for the Eurasians. David Morpeth would indeed have been welcomed in other circles, but, as Mrs. Fellowes had explained to Mark that morning, he had given himself body and soul to the despised race. Mark Cheveril had been quick to note the chivalry of his heart, and it found an echo in his own. "Mrs. Fellowes told me you are so immersed in work for our people that you don't even take a holiday to the hills." "Ah, you see I have a large family to look after, but there is good cheer in the work. You must not believe all you hear about the inevitable degradation of the mixed race." "I should be the last to believe anything of the kind. It would be a death-knell to my hopes of helping them, but I must be a learner for some time to come." "Ah, but a sympathetic one! That makes all the difference! It is the cruel inveterate prejudice against the whole class that has led to their degradation. They have accepted the verdict passed on them by the pure races, and it has crushed them. Their tendency is to look down on manual labour, and yet in industrial callings they cannot hold their own with the inhabitants of the soil. The poor among them have sunk so low, wearing out hopeless lives in wretched crowded dens. Often only a shed with a mat as covering suffices for a home. They have neither physical nor mental energy to strike out careers for themselves. Inevitable pauperism we have, of course, as in England, and it is often encouraged by indiscriminate giving that plays into the hands of loafers, many of them pure Europeans who will not work, preferring to become beggars. It's easy enough to throw a bone to a dog and be done with it, and the well-wishers of our people are well to watch with jealous eye those trouble-hating Europeans, ay, even among the clergy, who would salve their consciences by merely giving alms." "Yes, Mrs. Fellowes told me she used to be one of those till you enlightened her."