When they had stood in silence for a while, Jane told of her father’s death and its circumstances.  She told him, too, of Pennyloaf’s humble security.

‘You have kept well all the year?’ he asked.

‘And you too, I hope?’

Then they bade each other good-bye. . . .

In each life little for congratulation.  He with the ambitions of his youth frustrated; neither an artist, nor a leader of men in the battle for justice.  She, no saviour of society by the force of a superb example; no daughter of the people, holding wealth in trust for the people’s needs.  Yet to both was their work given.  Unmarked, unencouraged save by their love of uprightness and mercy, they stood by the side of those more hapless, brought some comfort to hearts less courageous than their own.  Where they abode it was not all dark.  Sorrow certainly awaited them, perchance defeat in even the humble aims that they had set themselves; but at least their lives would remain a protest against those brute forces of society which fill with wreck the abysses of the nether world.