‘What of her present position?  She must be in extreme difficulties.’

’No, she wants nothing for the present.  Friends have been very anxious to help her.  That’s what I say,—­only let your misery drive you out of the world, and people will find out all at once how very easily they might have saved you.  A hundredth part of the interest that has been shown in the family since poor Mr. Hood’s death would have found endless ways of making his life very different.  All sorts of people have suddenly discovered that he really was a very deserving man, and that something ought long since to have been done for him.  I don’t know what has been told you of his history.  He was once in independent business; I don’t know exactly what.  It was only utter failure that drove him to the miserable clerkship.  How admirable it was of a man in such circumstances to have his daughter so well educated!’

Wilfrid smiled.

‘Emily,’ he said with gentle fervour, ‘would have found her own way.’

‘Ah, don’t depreciate his care!’ Mrs. Baxendale urged.  ’You’ll find out by degrees what a great deal of heathen doubt there is in me; among other things, I am impressed by the power of circumstances.  Emily would always have been a remarkable girl, no doubt; but, without her education, you and I should not have been talking about her like this, even if we had known her.  We can’t dispense with these aids; that’s where I feel the cruelty of depriving people of chances.  Men and women go to their graves in wretchedness who might have done noble things with an extra pound a week to live upon.  It does not sound lofty doctrine, does it?  But I have vast faith in the extra pound a week.  Emily had the advantage of it, however it was managed.  I don’t like to think of her as she might have been without it.  What was it Beatrice called me yesterday?  A materialist; yes, a materialist.  It was a reproach, though she said it in the kindest way; I took it as a compliment.  We can’t get out of the world of material; how long will the mind support itself on an insufficient supply of dry bread?’

Wilfrid’s intellectual sympathies were being aroused by his new friend’s original way of talking.  He began to feel a keen satisfaction at having her near him in these troubles.

‘Do you think,’ he asked, returning to his immediate needs, ’that I might write to her?’

‘Not yet; you mustn’t think of it yet.’

‘Does Mrs. Hood—­’ he hesitated.  ’Do you think Emily has told her mother—­has spoken to her of me?’

Mrs. Baxendale looked surprised.  ‘I can’t say; I took it for granted.’

‘I wonder why she was reluctant to do so?’ Wilfrid said, already speaking with complete freedom.  ’Her father cannot have known; it would have relieved his worst anxieties; he would surely never have been driven to such things.’

’No; I think not.  The poor girl will feel that, I fear.  I suppose one can get a glimpse of her reasons for keeping silence?’ She gave Wilfrid a friendly glance as she spoke.