ve swept the streets, had I been you. What is money compared
with a clear conscience?'

'My conscience is clear. I know my mother, but the king I have never
seen. His dues are nothing to me. But it is a great deal to me that my
mother and I should live.'

'Marry me, and promise to give it up. I will keep your mother.'

'It is good of you,' she said, trembling a little. 'Let me think of it
by myself. I would rather not answer now.'

She reserved her answer till the next day, and came into his room with a
solemn face. 'I cannot do what you wished!' she said passionately. 'It
is too much to ask. My whole life ha' been passed in this way.' Her
words and manner showed that before entering she had been struggling with
herself in private, and that the contention had been strong.

Stockdale turned pale, but he spoke quietly. 'Then, Lizzy, we must part.
I cannot go against my principles in this matter, and I cannot make my
profession a mockery. You know how I love you, and what I would do for
you; but this one thing I cannot do.'

'But why should you belong to that profession?' she burst out. 'I have
got this large house; why can't you marry me, and live here with us, and
not be a Methodist preacher any more? I assure you, Richard, it is no
harm, and I wish you could only see it as I do! We only carry it on in
winter: in summer it is never done at all. It stirs up one's dull life
at this time o' the year, and gives excitement, which I have got so used
to now that I should hardly know how to do 'ithout it. At nights, when
the wind blows, instead of being dull and stupid, and not noticing
whether it do blow or not, your mind is afield, even if you are not
afield yourself; and you are wondering how the chaps are getting on; and
you walk up and down the room, and look out o' window, and then you go
out yourself, and know your way about as well by night as by day, and
have hairbreadth escapes from old Latimer and his fellows, who are too
stupid ever to really frighten us, and only make us a bit nimble.'

'He frightened you a little last night, anyhow: and I would advise you to
drop it before it is worse.'

She shook her head. 'No, I must go on as I have begun. I was born to
it. It is in my blood, and I can't be cured. O, Richard, you cannot
think what a hard thing you have asked, and how sharp you try me when you
put me between this and my love for 'ee!'

Stockdale was leaning with his elbow on the mant