"What else could I mean?"
"Then it seems to me that the obligation has passed away with the circumstances that occasioned it."
Miriam kept her eyes on the table, and for a few moments seemed to reflect.
"A promise is a promise, Eleanor."
"So it is. And a fact is a fact. I take it for granted that you are no longer the person who made the promise. I have a faint recollection that when I was about eight years old, I pledged myself, on reaching maturity, to give my nurse the exact half of my worldly possessions. I don't feel the least ashamed of having made such a promise, and just as little of not having kept it."
Miriam smiled, but still had an unconvinced face.
"I was not eight years old," she said, "but about four-and-twenty."
"Then let us put it in this way. Do you still feel a desire to benefit that religious community in Bartles? Would it distress you to think that they shook their heads in mentioning your name?"
"I do feel rather in that way," Miriam admitted slowly.
"But is this enough to justify you in giving them half or more of all you possess? You spoke of pulling down Redbeck House, and building on the site, didn't you?"