make up her mind a bit first. The collection box came too soon."

"I've no doubt you're right," said the minister. "She's a good woman if
a little erratic, and a sovereign means a large part of her week's
takings."

"I don't think she ought to have given it," said the steward's wife, who
was waiting for her husband to drive her home. "She'll need help herself
if she gives away like that. She always _must_ be different from other
people."

Anne Hilton was walking home in the cool night air. The stars were so
clear that they seemed to rest on the fields and tree-tops, and the
rustle of the sleepless corn passed behind every hedge. She walked with
a certain carefulness as of one who had unexpectedly escaped a physical
danger; but the peril from which she was conscious of fleeing was
spiritual. She had been threatened by avarice which had prompted her to
give a small sum instead of the sovereign, and the evangelist had been
right in his intuition. It had needed a good deal of "making up her
mind" to give away the greater part of her earnings, even under the
warmth of human appeal. She had conquered, but narrowly, and there was
as much shame as satisfaction in her heart as she left the building, and
more than all a great fear lest it should be talked about.




CHAPTER XVII