"No further, madam, than you inquire into the character of the visitors you receive. Plenty of thieves and seducers are in every society, but it is not until a man is publicly known to be a thief or a seducer that we are justified in refusing him a courteous reception. A great deal of money is the wages of sin, and it passes through our hands and we are not stained by its contact; but if I give you a piece of gold and say, 'It is the price of a slain soul, or a slain body, or a slain reputation,' would you like to put it in your purse, or buy bread for your children with it, or take it to church and offer it to God? I wish you good-morning, Mrs. Burrell." And Elizabeth bowed and stood watching him until the door was closed and she was alone with the coin. It offended her. It had been the cause of a most humiliating visit. She looked at it with scorn and loathing. A servant entered with a card; she took it eagerly, and pointing to the money said, "Carry it to Mr. Tresham's room and lay it upon the dressing-table." She was grateful to get it out of her sight, and very glad indeed to see the visitor who had given her such a prompt opportunity for ridding her eyes of its gleaming presence. Thus it is that not only present but absent personalities rule us. In St. Penfer, Paul Pyn and Ann Bude, John and Joan Penelles, the Rev. Mr. Farrar and Mrs. Burrell, were all that morning governed in some degree by Roland's evilly spent sovereign; and he far off in London was in the hey-day of his honeymoon with Denas. They were so gay, so thoughtless and happy that people turned to look at them as they wandered through the bazars or stood laughing before the splendid windows in Regent Street. Many an old man and woman smiled sympathetically at them; for all the world loves a lover, and none could tell that these lovers had forfeited their right to sympathy by stealing their pleasure from those who ought to have shared it with them. But as yet the world was only an accident of their love, and there was a whole week before them of unbroken and unsatiated delight--a whole week in which neither of them thought of the past or the future; in which every hour brought a fresh pleasure, something new to wear, or to see, or to hear. If it could only have lasted! Alas! the ability to enjoy went first. Amusements of every kind grew a little--a very little--tiresome. The first glory was dimmed; the charm of freshness was duller; the unreasoning delight of ignorance a little less enthusiastic every day; and about the close of the third week Roland said one morning, "You look weary, Denasia, my darling." "I am tired, Roland--tired of going a-pleasuring. I never thought anything like that could possibly happen. Ought I not to be taking lessons, learning something, doing something about my voice?" "It is high time, love. Money melts in London like ice in summer. Suppose we go and see Signor Maria this morning." "I would like to go very much."