. I have a faint recollection that when I
was about eight years old, I pledged myself, on reaching maturity, to give my
nurse the exact half of my worldly possessions. I don't feel the least ashamed
of having made such a promise, and just as little of not having kept it.«
    Miriam smiled, but still had an unconvinced face.
    »I was not eight years old,« she said, »but about four-and-twenty.«
    »Then let us put it in this way. Do you still feel a desire to benefit that
religious community in Bartles? Would it distress you to think that they shook
their heads in mentioning your name?«
    »I do feel rather in that way,« Miriam admitted slowly.
    »But is this enough to justify you in giving them half or more of all you
possess? You spoke of pulling down Redbeck House, and building on the site,
didn't you?«
    »Yes.«
    »In any case, should you ever live there again?«
    »Never.«
    »You prefer to be with us in London?«
    »I think you have been troubled with me quite long enough. Perhaps I might
take rooms.«
    »If you are as willing to share our house as we are to have you with us,
there can be no need for you to live alone.«
    »I can't make up my mind about that, Eleanor. Let us talk only about the
chapel just now. Are you sure that other people would see it as you do?«
    »Other people of my way of thinking would no doubt think the same - which is
a pretty piece of tautology. Edward would be amazed to hear that you have such
scruples. It isn't as if you had promised to support a family in dire need, or
anything of that kind. The chapel is a superfluity.«
    »Not to them.«
    »They have one already.«
    »But very small and inconvenient.«
    »Suppose you ask Mr. Mallard for his thoughts on the subject?« said Eleanor,
as if at the bidding of a caprice.
    »Does Mr. Mallard know that I once had this purpose?«
    »I think so,« replied the other, with a little hesitation. »You know that
there was no kind of reserve about it when you first came to Naples.«
    »No, of course not. Do you feel as sure of his opinion as of Edward's?«
    »I can't say that I
