“Oh, yes, miss, there’s Mrs. Reaney working with all her might for us,” said Hallifield. “But you see folks are hard to move, and if we had only the dozen hours a day that we ought to have and every other Sunday at home, why, miss, they’d perhaps not get nine per cent. on their money as they do now.” “They are no better than murderers!” said Frithiof hotly. “Well,” said Hallifield, “so it has seemed to me sometimes. But I never set up to know much; I’ve had no time for book-learning, nor for religion either, barely time for eating and sleeping. I don’t think God Almighty will be hard on a fellow that has done his best to keep his wife and children in comfort, and I’ll not complain if only He’ll just let me sit still and do nothing for a bit, for I’m mortal tired.” He had been talking eagerly, and for the time his strength had returned to him, but now his head dropped forward, and his hands clutched convulsively at the blankets. With a great cry the poor wife started forward and flung her arms round him. “He’s going!” she sobbed. “He’s going! John—oh, John!” “Nine per cent. on their money!” thought Frithiof. “My God! if they could but see this!” * * * * * By-and-by, when he had done all that he could to help, he went back to his own room, leaving Sigrid still with the poor widow. The scene had made a deep impression on him; he had never before seen any one die, and the thought of poor Hallifield’s pathetic confession that he had had no time for anything, but the toil of living, returned to him again and again. “That is a death-bed that ought not to have been,” he reflected. “It came for the hateful struggle for wealth. Yet the shareholders are no worse than the rest of the world, it is only that they don’t think, or, if they do think for a time, allow themselves to be persuaded that the complaints are exaggerated. How easily men let themselves be hoodwinked by vague statements and comfortable assurances when they want to be persuaded, when it is to their own interest to let things go on as before.” And then, quite unable to sleep, he lay thinking of the great problems which had so often haunted him, the sharp contrasts between too great wealth and too great poverty, the unequal chances in life, the grinding competition, the ineffable sadness of the world. But his thoughts were no longer tainted by bitterness and despair, because, though he could not see a purpose in all the great mysteries of life, yet he trusted One who had a purpose, One who in the end must overcome all evil, and he knew that he himself was bound to live and could live a life which should help toward that great end.