"I've not thought much of doing good, I tell you frankly. I wasn't
brought up to think about it; I don't know that I ever did any good in my
life. I supposed it was only missionaries and women who did that sort of
thing."

"But you wrong yourself. You have done good in this village. Why, we
all have talked of it; and though it wasn't done in the usual way--rather
irregularly--still it was doing good."

He looked down at her astonished.

"Well, here's a pretty libel! Doing good 'irregularly'? Why, where have
I done good at all?"

She ran over the names of several sick people in the village whose bills
he had paid, the personal help and interest he had given to many, and,
last of all, she mentioned the case of the village postmaster.

Since Gaston had come, postmasters had been changed. The little pale-
faced man who had first held the position disappeared one night, and in
another twenty-four hours a new one was in his place. Many stories had
gone about. It was rumoured that the little man was short in his
accounts, and had been got out of the way by Gaston Belward.
Archdeacon Varcoe knew the truth, and had said that Gaston's sin was not
unpardonable, in spite of a few squires and their dames who declared it
was shocking that a man should have such loose ideas, that no good could
come to the county from it, and that he would put nonsense into the heads
of the common people. Alice Wingfield was now to hear Gaston's view of
the matter.