"If that were true I should not speak to you in this way," and her voice became tremulous. "But I am not going to throw away my life, Tom; there's something more in life than--than love." "What?" he asked. "Duty, God," was the reply. Tom again laughed uneasily. Alice Lister lived in a different world from that in which Polly Powell lived; they breathed a different atmosphere; they spoke a different language. Yes, he would have to make his choice. "I would rather have you than forty Polly Powells," he burst out, "I would really, Alice, but--but----" "There must be no buts, Tom, if--if you want me. Oh, Tom, can't you see? You know that what I say is right and--and----" He saw her lips quiver; saw the tears start to her eyes. He knew that his association with the daughter of the landlord of the Thorn and Thistle was coarsening him, making him have lower standards of life, making everything poorer, more sordid. Whenever he was with Alice he wanted to be better and truer, and she always made him ashamed of coarse, base things. "Alice, do you love me?" and his voice became almost hoarse. "If I didn't would I talk to you like this?" was her answer. A crisis had come into Tom's life, and he knew it. Two forces were fighting in his heart, two angels were battling for his soul. At that moment it seemed as though his better angel were going to win the victory; he was on the point of telling Alice that he would never go into the Thorn and Thistle again, never speak to Polly Powell again, when he heard a familiar voice close to him. "I say, Pollard, you are coming to-night, aren't you?" Tom turned and saw a well-dressed young fellow close beside him. He had come to Brunford some three years before to learn the cotton trade, and during the last few months he and Tom had been very friendly. Tom was rather proud of this, because young Harry Waterman was his superior, both socially and from an educational standpoint. Waterman claimed to be the son of a squire who lived in Warwickshire, who had sent him to Brunford to learn cotton manufacturing because more money was to be made out of it than by sticking to the land.