"Don't," said Rachel, her lip trembling.
"I must. You did not care then. If a flagrant case came before you you gave something like other uncharitable people who hate feeling uncomfortable. But you care now. You seek out those who need you. Answer me. Were they cheaply bought or not, that compassion and love for the degraded and the suffering which were the outcome of your years of poverty in Museum Buildings?"
"They were cheaply bought," said Rachel, with conviction, speaking with difficulty.
"Would you have learned them if you had gone on living in Portman Square?"
"Oh, Hester! would anybody?"
"Yes, they would. But that is not the question. Would you?"
"N—no," said Rachel.
There was a long silence.
Rachel's mind took its staff and travelled slowly, humbly, a few more difficult steps up that steep path where "Experience is converted into thought as a mulberry-leaf is converted into satin."
At last she turned her grave eyes upon her friend.