out. Please have another cup of tea, and kindly pass the marmalade."
Northcote having shifted the ground of his reasoning from the personal to the abstract, the old woman regained sufficient confidence to pour out the tea without spilling it.
"Now," said Northcote, "if you were in my position, would you try to enable one whom you knew to be a murderess to escape the gallows?"
"If I might say so, sir, I would try to have nothing to do with her at all."
"In other words, you would rather starve than take her money?"
"Yes, sir, I think I would."
"And cause you to rob your poor little grandchildren?"
"I—I—don't say that, sir."
"Let us be as logical as we can. Again, would it not cause me to rob my poor old mother who has contributed her all towards my education, which I put to no useful end?"
"You would be honest, sir."
"Honest, do you say! Do you call it honest to pervert and misapply the money my mother has lavished on my education?"
"Might you not use your education, sir, in some other way?"
"You would have me till the fields or be a clerk in an insurance office. Would that be honest in the sight of God, who has placed an instinct in me which I disobey? Surely one would say the truly dishonest man is he who is unfaithful to his nature. Had we not agreed upon that? If a man knows that he was designed by God to be an advocate, is
