"I have come on an errand which is not over pleasant," he remarked, watching her handling the cups, "and I am afraid that it is useless too." "Does that mean that it is something you wish me to do but think I'm too hard-hearted or selfish to agree to?" "It is not a question of willingness so much as of power. Mrs. Murphy is dying,--very likely by this time she is not living,--and she begs us to save her husband from being punished." "But how could that be done?" "I doubt if it could be done; but I promised her that I would speak to you. I suppose that if we did not give evidence there would not be much that could be told; but I hardly think that we have the right not to." Mrs. Fenton thoughtfully regarded the fire a moment; then seemed to be recalled to the present by the active boiling of the little silver teakettle. "I'm afraid women would drive justice out of the world if they had their way," she said with a smile. He smiled in reply, full of delight in her mere presence. They talked the matter over, arriving at some sort of a compromise between their sympathy for the dying woman and their feeling that a man like Murphy should be dealt with by the law. They came for the moment to seem to be on the old footing of simple friendliness, while she made the tea and they discussed the situation. "One lump or two?" Mrs. Fenton asked, pausing with tongs suspended over the sugar. "Two," answered he. "I am afraid I am self-indulgent in my tea, but then I very seldom take it." "So small an indulgence," she said, handing him his cup, "does not seem to me to indicate any great moral laxity." "It is the principle of the thing," Philip returned, smiling because she smiled. Mrs. Fenton shook her head. "Come," she said, "this is a good time for me to say something that has been in my mind for a long time. You may think that it isn't my affair, but I can't help saying that it seems to me you have allowed yourself to get into a frame of mind that is rather--well, that isn't entirely healthy. I hope you don't think me too presuming." "You could not be," was his reply; "but I do not understand what you mean." She had grown graver, and leaned back in her chair with downcast eyes. "I hardly know how to say it," she began slowly, "but you seem to me to be feeling rather morbidly about the virtue of personal discomfort. If you will pardon me, I can't think that you really believe it to be any merit in the sight of heaven that a man should make himself needlessly uncomfortable." "But if the mortification of the flesh helps us to"-- She put up her hand and interrupted him. "I am a good churchwoman, but I am not able to believe in scoring off the sins of the soul by abusing the body. The old monks scourging themselves and the Hindus swinging by hooks in their backs seem to me both pathetically mistaken, and both to be moved by the same feelings." "Then you do not believe in asceticism at all?"