ered. Henslowe's nerve gave way. He went
out at daybreak, white and sullen, to look for workmen.

Robert, standing on the step of a cottage, watched him give his orders,
and took vigilant note of their substance. They embodied the inspector's
directions, and the rector was satisfied. Henslowe was obliged to pass
him on his way to another group of houses. At first he affected not to
see the rector, then suddenly Elsmere was conscious that the man's
bloodshot eyes were on him. Such a look! If hate could have killed,
Elsmere would have fallen where he stood. Yet the man's hand
mechanically moved to his hat, as though the spell of his wife's
harangue were still potent over his shaking muscles.

Robert took no notice whatever of the salutation. He stood calmly
watching till Henslowe disappeared into the last house. Then he called
one of the agent's train, heard what was to be done, gave a sharp nod of
assent, and turned on his heel. So far so good: the servant had been
made to feel, but he wished it had been the master. Oh, those three
little emaciated creatures whose eyes he had closed, whose clammy hands
he had held to the last!--what reckoning should be asked for their
undeserved torments when the Great Account came to be made up?

Meanwhile not a sound apparently of all this reached the squire in the
sublime solitude of Murewell. A fortnight had passed. Henslowe had been
conquered, the county had rushed to Elsmere's help, and neither he nor
Mrs. Darcy had made a sign. Their life was so abnormal that it was
perfectly possible they had heard nothing. Elsmere wondered when they
_would_ hear.

The rector's chief help and support all through had been old Meyrick.
The parish doctor had been in bed with rheumatism when the epidemic
broke out, and Robert, feeling it a comfort to be rid of him, had thrown
the whole business into the hands of Meyrick and his son. This son was
nominally his father's junior partner, but as he was, besides, a young
and brilliant M.D. fresh from a great hospital, and his father was just
a poor old general practitioner, with the barest qualification, and only
forty years' experience to recommend him, it will easily be imagined
that the subordination was purely nominal. Indeed young Meyrick was fast
ousting his father in all directions, and the neighbourhood, which had
so far found itself unable either to enter or to quit this mortal scene
without old Meyrick's assistance, was beginning to send notes