"I know a mazing deal more about the weaknesses of my brother Nathan now than ever I did while the man was in life," he began. "He was always giving--always giving, whether he had it to give or whether he hadn't. I'm not defending him, but I know what it felt like a bit now. Giving be like drink: it grows on a man the same as liquor does. Nathan ought to have taken the pledge against giving. And yet 'tis just another example of how the Bible word never errs. On the face of it you'd think 'twas better fun to receive than to give. But that isn't so. Once break down the natural inclination, shared by the dog with his bone, to stick to what you've got--once make yourself hand over a bit to somebody else--and you'll find a wonderful interest arise out of it." "Some might. Some would break their hearts if they had to fork out like you've been doing of late." "They be the real misers. To them their stuff is more than food and life and the welfare of the nation. And even them, if we could tear their gold away from them, might thank us after they'd got over the operation, and found themselves better instead of worse without it." "All that's too deep for me," she answered. "The thing that's most difficult to me be this: How do you get any good out of helping these poor folk all underhand and unknown? Surely if a man or woman does good to others, he's a right to the only payment the poor can make him. And that's gratitude. Why won't you out with it and let them thank you?" "You're wrong," he said. "I've lived too many years in the world to want that. I'm a fool here and there, Susan; but I'm not the sort of fool that asks from men and women what's harder to give than any other thing. To put a fellow-creature under an obligation is to have a faith in human nature that I never have had, and never shall have. No, I don't want that payment; I'm getting better value for my money than that." "So long as you're satisfied----" Silence followed and each pursued a private line of thought. Humphrey puffed his pipe; Susan knitted, and her wooden needles tapped and rattled a regular tune. She was wondering whether the confession that she desired to make might be uttered at this auspicious moment. Her conscience tortured her; and it was the weight of a great misery on her mind, not the fact of giving up liquor, that had of late soured her temper. She had nearly strung herself to tell him of her sins when he, from the depths of his being, spoke again. But he was scarcely conscious of a listener.