"But it shan't be," said Jean. "What's the use of me if I'm not to help? No. Don't stiffen and look at me like that. I'm not offering you charity. Perhaps you may have heard that I've been left a lot of money--in trust. It's your money as much as mine; if it's anybody's it's God's money. I felt I just couldn't pass your door this morning, and I spoke to you, though I was frightfully scared--you looked so stand-offish.... Now listen. All I've got to do is to send your name to my lawyer--he's in London, and he knows nothing about anybody in Priorsford, so you needn't worry about him--and he will arrange that you get a sufficient income all your life. No, it isn't charity. You've fought hard all your life for others, and it's high time you got a rest. Everyone should get a rest and a competency when they are sixty. (Not that you are nearly that, of course.) Some day that happy state of affairs will be. Now the kettle's almost boiling, and I'm going to make you a cup of tea. Where's the caddy?" There was a spoonful of tea in the caddy, but in the cupboard there was only the heel of a loaf--no butter, no cheese, no jam. "I'm at the end of my tether," Miss Abbot admitted. "And unless I touch the money laid away for my rent, I haven't a penny in the house." "Then," said Jean, "it was high time I turned up." She heated the teapot and poked the bit of coal into a blaze. "Now here's your tea"--she reached for her bag that lay on the table--"and here's some money to go on with. Oh, please don't let's go over it all again. Do, my dear, be reasonable." "I doubt it's charity," said poor Miss Abbot, "but I cannot refuse. Indeed, I don't seem to take it in.... I've whiles dreamed something like this, and cried when I wakened. This last year has been something awful--trying to hide my failing eye-sight and pretending I didn't need sewing when I was near starving, and always seeing the workhouse before me. When I got up this morning there seemed to be a high wall in front of me, and I knew I had come to the end. I thought God had forgotten me."