"Too good for it?" Her voice trembled. "How can any one be too good to help the miserable? If you had said that I was not worthy of such a privilege--Can you, knowing me as no one else does or ever will, think that I could live here in peace, whilst those poor creatures stint and starve themselves every week to provide me with comforts? Do I seem to you such a woman?" He only smiled, his lips tortured to hold their peace. "I had hoped you understood me better than that. Is that why you have left me to myself? Do you doubt my sincerity? Why do you speak so cruelly, saying I am too good, when your real thoughts must be so different? You mean that I am incapable of really doing anything; you have no faith in me. I seem to you too weak to pursue any high end. You would not even speak to me of your book, because you felt I should not appreciate it. And yet you do know me--" "Yes; I know you well," Waymark said. Ida looked steadily at him. "If you are speaking to me for the last time, won't you be sincere, and tell me of my faults? Do you think I could not bear it? You can say nothing to me--nothing from your heart--that I won't accept in all humility. Are we no longer even friends?" "You mistake me altogether." "And you are still my friend?" she uttered warmly. "But why do you think me unfit for good work?" "I had no such thought. You know how my ideals oppose each other. I spoke on the impulse of the moment; I often find it so hard to reconcile myself to anything in life that is not, still and calm and beautiful. I am just now bent on forgetting all the things about which you are so earnest." "Earnest? Yes. But I cannot give my whole self to the work. I am so lonely." "You will not be so for long," he answered with more cheerfulness. "You have every opportunity of making for yourself a good social position. You will soon have friends, if only you seek them. Your goodness will make you respected. Indeed I wonder at your remaining so isolated. It need not be; I am sure it need not. Your wealth--I have no thought of speaking cynically--your wealth must--" "My wealth! What is it to me? What do I care for all the friends it might bring? They are nothing to me in my misery. But you ... I would give all I possess for one kind word from you." Flushing over forehead and cheeks, she compelled herself to meet his look. It was her wealth that stood between her and him. Her position was not like that of other women. Conventionalities were meaningless, set against a life. "I have tried hard to make myself ever so little worthy of you," she murmured, when her voice would again obey her will. "Am I still--still too far beneath you?" He stood like one detected in a crime, and stammered the words. "Ida, I am not free." He had risen. Ida sprang up, and moved towards him.