“I tell you I won’t,” said the voice in the next room with a groan, “I won’t.  Get thee behind me—­Get thee—­No, and don’t shove me over to the door; if you can’t get behind me without doing that, stay where you are.  Yes, I know it’s a fortune as well as what you do; but it ain’t mine.”

The listener caught his breath painfully.

“Diamond rings,” continued Brother Burge in a suffocating voice.  “Stop it, I tell you.  No, I won’t just go and look at ’em.”

A series of groans which the jeweller noticed to his horror got weaker and weaker testified to the greatness of the temptation.  He heard Brother Burge rise, and then a succession of panting snarls seemed to indicate a fierce bodily encounter.

“I don’t—­want to look at ’em,” said Brother Burge in an exhausted voice.  “What’s—­the good of—­looking at ’em?  It’s like you, you know diamonds are my weakness.  What does it matter if he is asleep?  What’s my knife got to do with you?”

Brother Higgs reeled back and a mist passed before his eyes.  He came to himself at the sound of a door opening, and impelled with a vague idea of defending his property, snatched up his candle and looked out on to the landing.

The light fell on Brother Burge, fully dressed and holding his boots in his hand.  For a moment they gazed at each other in silence; then the jeweller found his voice.

“I thought you were ill, Brother,” he faltered.

An ugly scowl lit up the other’s features.  “Don’t you tell me any of your lies,” he said fiercely.  “You’re watching me; that’s what you’re doing.  Spying on me.”

“I thought that you were being tempted,” confessed the trembling Mr. Higgs.

An expression of satisfaction which he strove to suppress appeared on Mr. Burge’s face.

“So I was,” he said sternly.  “So I was; but that’s my business.  I don’t want your assistance; I can fight my own battles.  You go to bed—­I’m going to tell the congregation I won the fight single-’anded.”

“So you have, Brother,” said the other eagerly; “but it’s doing me good to see it.  It’s a lesson to me; a lesson to all of us the way you wrestled.”

“I thought you was asleep,” growled Brother Burge, turning back to his room and speaking over his shoulder.  “You get back to bed; the fight ain’t half over yet.  Get back to bed and keep quiet.”

The door closed behind him, and Mr. Higgs, still trembling, regained his room and looked in agony at the clock.  It was only half-past twelve and the sun did not rise until six.  He sat and shivered until a second instalment of groans in the next room brought him in desperation to his feet.