They both turned quickly around. Julia was standing by their side, and with her the girl.
"I told her," Julia explained, "that it was not my money I was offering, but the money of a gentleman who was the greatest friend the poor people of the world have ever known. She wanted to speak to you."
The girl drew her shawl a little closer around her shoulders. Her face bore upon it the terrible stamp of suffering, without its redeeming purification. Save for her abundant hair, her very sex would have been unrecognisable. She looked steadily at Maraton.
"You sent me money," she said.
"I did," he admitted.
"Are you one of those soft-hearted fools who go about doing this sort of thing?" she demanded.
"I am not," he replied. "I object to giving money away. I am sorry to see people suffering, but as a rule I think that it is their own fault if they come to the straits that you are in. I sent the money to please this young lady."
"Their own fault, eh?" she muttered.
"I qualify that," he added quickly. "Their own fault because they submit to a heritage of unjust laws. It is your own fault because you don't join together and smash the laws. You would fill the jails, perhaps, but you'd make it easier for those who came after."
She stood quite silent for a moment. When she spoke, the truculent note had departed from her tone.