‘What you are doing, I suppose,’ said Hazel, with a little undefined twinge that came much nearer jealousy than she guessed.

‘That is very plain, and perfectly simple, isn’t it?’

’It sounds so.’—­And glancing furtively at the bright, clear face, she added to herself Dr. Maryland’s old words:  ’Love likes her bonds!’—­That was plain too.

’Then another question.  If I belong to this One whom I love, does not all that I have belong to him too?’

‘But it was not I who said you were ruining yourself,’ said the girl in her quick way.  ‘I liked it.’

‘Did you?’ said he, with one of his flashes of eye.  ’But I am giving you a lesson to study.  I am not justifying myself.  Answer my question.  Does not all I have belong to that One, who loves me and whom I love?’

She bowed her head in assent.  Somehow the words hurt her.

’So that, whatever I do, I cannot be said to give him anything?  It is all his already.  I am asking you a business question.  I want you to answer just as it appears to you.’

‘How can it appear but in one way?’ said Hazel.  ’That must be true, of course.’

’Very well.  That is clear.  Now suppose further that my Lord has left me special directions about what he wants done to these people I spoke of—­am I not to take the directions exactly as they stand, without clipping?’

‘Yes.’

He put his hand upon the book which lay before her, and turned back the leaves to the third chapter of Luke; there indicated a verse and bade her read again.

’ “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none.” ’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Rollo.

‘What it says—­if it means anything, I suppose.’

Again Rollo put his hand upon the leaves, turning further back still till he reached the book of Isaiah.  And then he gave Wych Hazel these words to read: 

’Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every joke?  Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thine house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?’

‘How are the commands to be met?’ Rollo asked gravely when she had done.

‘Why, you have found out!’ said Hazel.  ’I knew you would go off on a crusade after that October sky, Mr. Rollo.’

He seemed half to forget his subject, or to merge it, in a deep, thoughtful gaze at her for a few moments, over which a smile gradually broke.

‘To come back to our lesson,’ he said,—­’are not these commands to be taken au pied de la lettre?’

’They can hardly be the one exception among commands, I should think,’—­with a little arch of her eyebrows.

’Then I am bound, am I not, to undo every heavy burden that I can reach? to loose every bond of wickedness, and to break every yoke, and to remove oppression, in so far as it lies with me to do it?  Do you not think so?’