to the
house in Churton High Street, whereon the superscription 'Dr. _Edward_
Meyrick' was underlined with ungrateful emphasis. The father took his
deposition very quietly. Only on Murewell Hall would he allow no
trespassing, and so long as his son left him undisturbed there, he took
his effacement in other quarters with perfect meekness.

Young Elsmere's behaviour to him, however, at a time when all the rest
of the Churton world was beginning to hold him cheap and let him see it,
had touched the old man's heart, and he was the rector's slave in this
Mile End business. Edward Meyrick would come whirling in and out of the
hamlet once a day. Robert was seldom sorry to see the back of him. His
attainments, of course, were useful, but his cocksureness was
irritating, and his manner to his father abominable. The father, on the
other hand, came over in the shabby pony-cart he had driven for the last
forty years, and having himself no press of business, would spend hours
with the rector over the cases, giving them an infinity of patient
watching, and amusing Robert by the cautious hostility he would allow
himself every now and then towards his son's new-fangled devices.

At first Meyrick showed himself fidgety as to the squire. Had he been
seen, been heard from? He received Robert's sharp negatives with long
sighs, but Robert clearly saw that, like the rest of the world, he was
too much afraid of Mr. Wendover to go and beard him. Some months before,
as it happened, Elsmere had told him the story of his encounter with the
squire, and had been a good deal moved and surprised by the old man's
concern.

One day, about three weeks from the beginning of the outbreak, when the
state of things in the hamlet was beginning decidedly to mend, Meyrick
arrived for his morning round, much preoccupied. He hurried his work a
little, and after it was done asked Robert to walk up the road with him.

'I have seen the squire, sir,' he said, turning on his companion with a
certain excitement.

Robert flushed.

'Have you?' he replied with his hands behind him, and a world of
expression in his sarcastic voice.

'You misjudge him! You misjudge him, Mr. Elsmere!' the old man said
tremulously. 'I told you he could know nothing of this business--and he
didn't! He has been in town part of the time, and down here--how is he
to know anything? He sees nobody. That man Henslowe, sir, must be a real
_bad_ fellow.'

'Don't abuse the man,' said Rober