"I assure you this is simplest. I happen"--he smiled--"to have enough in the bank. Alice and I can manage quite well till January!" The mention of Mrs. Matheson was quite intolerable in Delia's ears. She turned upon him-- "I can't accept it! You oughtn't to ask it." "I think you must accept it," he said with decision. "But the important question with me is--the further question--am I not really bound to restore this money to your father's estate?" Delia stared at him bewildered. "What _do_ you mean!" "Your father made me his trustee in order that I might protect his money--from uses of which he disapproved--and protect you, if I could, from actions and companions he dreaded. This L500 has gone--where he expressly wished it not to go. It seems to me that I am liable, and that I ought to repay." Delia gasped. "I never heard anything so absurd!" "I will consider it," he said gravely. "It is a case of conscience. Meanwhile"--he began to write the cheque--"here is the money. Only, let me warn you, dear Miss Delia,--if this were repeated, I might find myself embarrassed. I am not a rich man!" Silence. He finished writing the cheque, and handed it to her. Delia pushed it away, and it dropped on the table between them. "It is simply tyranny--monstrous tyranny--that I should be coerced like this!" she said, choking. "You must feel it so yourself! Put yourself in my place, Mr. Winnington." "I think--I am first bound--to try and put myself in your father's place," he said, with vivacity. "Where has that money gone, Miss Delia?" He rose, and in his turn began to pace the little room. "It has been proved, in evidence, that a great deal of this outrage is _paid_ outrage--that it could not be carried on without money--however madly and fanatically devoted, however personally disinterested the organisers of it may be--such as Miss Marvell. You have, therefore, taken your father's money to provide for this payment--payment for all that his soul most abhorred. His will was his last painful effort to prevent this being done. And yet--you have done it!" He looked at her steadily. "One may seem to do evil"--she panted--"but we have a faith, a cause, which justifies it!" He shook his head sadly, Delia sat very still, tormented by a score of harassing thoughts. If she could not provide money for the "Daughters" what particular use could she be to Gertrude, or Gertrude's Committee? She could speak, and walk in processions, and break up meetings. But so could hundreds of others. It was her fortune--she knew it--that had made her so important in Gertrude's eyes. It had always been assumed between them that a little daring and a little adroitness would break through the meshes of her father's will. And how difficult it was turning out to be!